full circle magazine #65
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Full Circle
THE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE UBUNTU LINUX COMMUNITY
ISSUE #65 - September 2012
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REVIEW
UBUNTU MADE EASY
KEEPING YOUR HOME PARTITION SAFE
Photo: ell brown (Flickr.com)
full circle magazine #65
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Full Circle
THE INDEPENDENT MAGAZINE FOR THE UBUNTU LINUX COMMUNITY
Use Encryption p.13
LibreOffice - Part 18 p.10
Python - Part 37 p.06
Kdenlive - Part 2 p.16
HowTo
Opinions
Q&A p.51
Ubuntu Games p.54
Ubuntu Women p.XX
Command & Conquer p.04
Inkscape - Part 5 p.18
Columns
Linux Labs p.27
Review p.42
Web Dev p.21
My Opinion p.35
My Story p.32
Letters p.48
Audio Flux p.XX
Ask The New Guy p.24
Closing Windows p.29
BACK NEXT MONTH
Graphics
Web Dev
BACK NEXT MONTH
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Welcome to another issue of Full Circle!
T
his month's FCM brings you more Python and LibreOffice, and they are
accompanied with an article on setting up encryption within Ubuntu.
Unfortunately, encrypting your partitions can go awry when hibernation kicks in.
Fear not, this article explains how to rectify any sleeping issues. With the computer
I mean, not you.
No Starch Press has been kind enough to submit a review copy of Ubuntu Made Easy,
which is reviewed this issue. Incidentally, we're open to reviewing anything Linux related,
so, if you know of anyone who might be interested in having something reviewed, please
tell them about us. Not only does it give us something to review (thus, filling pages), but we
are quite happy to return the favor by giving the supplier ad space for free. We reach over
25,000 people each month who love Ubuntu and Linux, so it's quite worth it.
A couple of (small) changes this month. Please read the 'Write for Full Circle' and
'Contribute' pages as I've updated them with links to the Official Full Circle Style Guide
and where you can get Full Circle. Speaking of getting FCM, you can now read all back issues
of Full Circle via Issuu (link is on the Contribute page). This means you can waste work time
by reading FCM without downloading the PDF. Don't worry, the PDF will always be available
for download, we've no intention of abandoning it.
All the best, and keep in touch!
ronnie@fullcirclemagazine.org
Full Circle Podcast
Released monthly, each episode
covers all the latest Ubuntu news,
opinions, reviews, interviews and
listener feedback. The Side-Pod is
a new addition, it's an extra
(irregular) short-form podcast
which is intended to be a branch
of the main podcast. It's
somewhere to put all the general
technology and non-Ubuntu stuff
that doesn’t fit in the main
podcast.
Hosts:
Les Pounder
Tony Hughes
Jon Chamberlain
Oliver Clark
http://fullcirclemagazine.org
full circle magazine #65
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T
hese past few weeks I've
gotten hooked on Guild
Wars 2, which was
released on August 28th.
However, as I'm on vacation, I was
placed in the position of having to
rely on Wine.
I tend to prefer running games
natively. However, I've gotten it
working fairly well via PlayOnLinux
(the only exceptions are the
embedded webpages for the Black
Lion Trading Company and looking
with the mouse, both are solved
using patched versions of Wine).
Long story short, if you want to
play the game in Wine, keep on
reading. For anyone who isn't
aware of it, Guild Wars 2 is a
Massively Multiplayer Online
Roleplaying Game from ArenaNet.
It offers 5 different classes, 8
professions (called classes in most
MMOs), and features such as
dynamic events (as opposed to
classes, these are events that
spawn semi-randomly over the
map, giving you a more immersive
game), and a personalized story for
each character you create. For
anyone skeptical about it: I've
started about 8 different
characters since the 3rd Beta
Weekend event, and each one has
had a significantly different story.
The game is buy-to-play (as
opposed to free-to-play or pay-to-
play). What that means is that once
you buy the game, you own it and
can play it (like most non-MMO
games). The game is currently
going for between 45 and 65€ (60-
80 USD).
Versions of Wine I used: 1.5.9-
raw3 originally (the raw input
patch is required to be able to
rotate the camera via mouse).
However, at the time of writing,
PlayOnLinux also offers a
-guildwars2 series of Wine
versions, that include patches for
raw input and the embedded
webpages (see this bug report:
http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.
cgi?id=27168#c41). I get slightly
fewer FPS with this version of wine
(1.5.12-guildwars2), but I haven’t
been using it for long. There are
numerous versions of -guildwars2
patches, so some older versions
may offer slightly better
performance. According to the
PlayOnLinux forums, 1.4.1-
guildwars2 offers the best
performance, and 1.5.11 can lead
to issues with alsa. Anyone not
using PlayOnLinux can patch their
version of Wine with the
corresponding patches.
The screenshots were taken at
the highest graphical settings
possible on my laptop, but they
were by no means the maximum
settings available.
The easiest way to set up the
Wine installation is to use
PlayOnLinux, and, after enabling
the testing repository, installing
Guild Wars 2 via the interface. If,
however, you dislike using
PlayOnLinux, you simply need to
download the installer and execute
it. It will begin a download, roughly
10MB, if I remember correctly.
Once the download finishes, you
may be greeted by a black
screen—if this is the case, you'll
need to work blind for a second.
The button you need to press is in
the lower-left quadrant of the
window. It was roughly 1/5th of
the way from the bottom, and
1/5th to 1/6th of the way from the
left of the window for me. It will
pop open a new window asking you
for the install location. I wouldn't
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Written by Lucas Westermann
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full circle magazine #65
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Lucas has learned all he knows from
repeatedly breaking his system, then
having no other option but to
discover how to fix it. You can email
Lucas at: lswest34@gmail.com.
recommend changing the default
path too much, but so long as it
ends up in the correct Wine folder,
it shouldn't be an issue. Once
you've selected the path, hit the
“okay” button. In newer versions of
the installer, the button may be
the direct “install” button, but if it
says “okay” and nothing happens,
the install button should be in
roughly the same spot as the first
button, but on the other side of
the window.
For anyone not interested in
fighting with a black screen, you
can easily start the installation
from a Windows PC, and copy the
resulting Guild Wars 2 folder. It
also works in a Virtual Machine. I
wouldn't recommend letting the
game patch in a VM though, since
the resulting folder can get rather
large. Once you've gotten the
Gw2.exe, Gw2.dat, and Gw2.tmp,
you're basically ready to patch your
game.
In order to patch your game,
you'll need to create some sort of
launcher, so that you can pass an
argument to Gw2.exe. If you're
using PlayOnLinux, you can do this
by choosing Configure, and adding
-dx9single to the arguments field.
This stops the black screen issue
(and also the perpetual connection
attempt). If you're using plain old
Wine, you'll just need to either
create a .desktop file (I haven't
tested arguments in these sorts of
files, but it should work), or else a
bash file that looks something like
this:
#!/bin/bash
wine $PATH/Gw2.exe ­dx9single
This worked for me during the
beta weekends (since then, I've
switched to PlayOnLinux in order
to have easy access to the raw
input patches). It's also
recommended that you have
d3dx9, gecko, and mono installed.
(Though both gecko and mono
don't appear to have an impact, it's
better to have them and not need
them).
Once your launcher is created,
you're all ready to start patching
(trust me, it can take a while).
Some people report intermittent
crashes of the launcher when using
Wine, but I didn't have this issue. If
you want to risk leaving it
unattended as it downloads, you
can give it a shot, but you may
need to restart the launcher
occasionally.
Hopefully I've appealed to any
MMO fans with this article. If I
have, and you'd like to see these
sorts of articles continuing, please
let me know (along with any names
of games you'd like to see covered
if I can get it working, I'll cover it).
In case you have any questions,
comments, or suggestions about
this article (or ideas for future
articles), you can reach me at
lswest34@gmail.com. If you do
email me, please include FCM or
C&C in the subject line, so I don't
overlook the email. Also, if anyone
is playing Guild Wars 2 and has any
suggestions to make it run better
(or want to share some tips/ask
questions), you're also welcome to
email me. My home world is
Gandara, but, thanks to the
guesting feature, odds are I should
be able to help out just about
anyone.
COMMAND & CONQUER
full circle magazine #65
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his month, we’ll finish up
the transposer program
that we wrote in Kivy.
Hopefully, you saved the
code from last time, because we’ll
be building upon it. If not, grab the
code from FCM#64.
Let’s start by recapping what
we did last month. We created an
application that allows for a
guitarist to quickly transpose from
one key to the other. The ultimate
goal is to be able to run this app
not only on your Linux or Windows
box, but on an android device as
well. I take mine on my tablet
whenever I go to band practice. I
was going to deal with packaging
our project for Android, but some
things have changed in the method
to do that, so we’ll work on that
next month.
The app, as we left it last time,
looked like that shown below left.
When we are done, it should
look like the screen below right.
The first thing you will notice is
that there are blue labels rather
than boring gray ones. The next is
that there are three buttons.
Finally the scrollable labels are
closer to the entire width of the
window. Other than that, it’s
pretty much (visually) the same.
One of the buttons is an “about”
button that will pop up simple
information, but it explains how to
make a simple popup. One of the
buttons is an exit button. The
other button will swap the label
text to make it easy to transpose
from piano to guitar or guitar to
piano.
Let’s get started by creating a
.kv file (above right). This is what
will give us the colored labels. It’s a
very simple file.
#:kivy 1.0
#:import kivy kivy
<BoundedLabel>:
canvas.before:
Color:
rgb: 0, 0, 1
Rectangle:
pos: self.pos
size: self.size
full circle magazine #65
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HOWTO - PROGRAMMING IN PYTHON 37
The first two lines are required.
They basically say what version of
Kivy to expect. Next we create a
new type of label called
‘BoundedLabel’. The color is set
with RGB values (between 0 and 1,
which can be considered as 100
percent), and as you can see the
blue value is set at 100 percent.
We will also create a rectangle
which is the actual label. Save this
as “transpose.kv”. You must use
the name of the class that will be
using it.
Now that you have that
completed, add the following lines
just before the transpose class to
the source file from last time:
class BoundedLabel(Label):
pass
To make it work, all we need is a
definition. Before we go any
further, add the following line to
the import section:
from kivy.uix.popup import
Popup
This allows us to create the
popup later on. Now, in the
Transpose class, just inside the def
build routine, place the code
shown above right.
The LoadLabels routine will give
us the colored labels
(BoundedLabel) and the swap
ability. You saw most of this last
time. We pass a value to the “w”
parameter to determine which text
is being displayed. The
l=BoundedLabel line is pretty much
the same line from last time, with
the exception that, this time, we
are using a BoundedLabel widget
instead of a Button widget. The
LoadLabels will mainly be called
from the next routine, Swap. Place
this code (shown right) below
LoadLabels.
def LoadLabels(w):
if w == 0:
tex0 = self.text1
tex1 = self.text2
else:
tex0 = self.text3
tex1 = self.text4
for i in range(0,22):
if i <= 12:
if i < 10:
t1 = " " + str(i) + "| "
else:
t1 = str(i) + "| "
t = tex1
else:
t1 = ''
t = ''
l = BoundedLabel(text=t1+t[(i*6):(i*6)+78], size=(780, 35),
size_hint=(None,None),halign='left',
font_name='data/fonts/DroidSansMono.ttf')
s.add_widget(l)
def Swap(instance):
if self.whichway == 0:
self.whichway = 1
btnWhich.text = "Guitar ­­> Piano"
btn1.text = " " + self.text3
s.clear_widgets()
LoadLabels(1)
else:
self.whichway = 0
btnWhich.text = "Piano ­­> Guitar"
btn1.text = " " + self.text1
s.clear_widgets()
LoadLabels(0)
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HOWTO - PROGRAMMING IN PYTHON 37
You can see that this routine is
pretty self explanatory. We use a
variable (self.whichway) to
determine “which way” the labels
are displaying... from Guitar to
Piano or Piano to Guitar.
Be sure to save your work at
this point, since we are going to be
making a lot of changes from here
on.
Replace the lines defining text1
and text two with the lines shown
above.
We set self.whichway to 0 which
will be our default for the swap
procedure. Then we define four
strings instead of the two we had
last time. You might notice that
strings text3 and text4 are simple
reversals of text1 and text2.
Now we will tweak the root line
definition. Change it from...
root =
GridLayout(orientation='verti
cal', spacing=10,
cols=1,rows=3)
to
root =
GridLayout(orientation='verti
cal', spacing=6, cols=1,
rows=4,
row_default_height=40)
We’ve changed the spacing
from 10 to 6 and set the default
row height to 40 pixels. Change the
text for the label (next line) to
“text='Transposer Ver 0.8.0'”.
Everything else stays the same on
this line.
Now change the button
definition line from...
btn1 = Button(text = " " +
text1,size=(680,40),
size_hint=(None,None),
halign='left',
font_name='data/fonts/DroidSa
nsMono.ttf',
padding=(20,20))
to:
btn1 = Button(text = " "
+ self.text1,size=(780,20),
size_hint=(None, None),
halign='left',
font_name='data/fonts/DroidSa
nsMono.ttf',
padding=(20,2),
background_color=[0.39,0.07,.
92,1])
Notice that I’ve changed the
formatting of the first definition
for clarity. The big changes are the
size change from 680,40 to 780,20
and the background color for the
button. Remember, we can change
the background color for buttons,
not “standard” labels.
Next, we will define three
AnchorLayout widgets for the
three buttons that we will add in
later. I named them al0
(AnchorLayout0), al1 and al2. We
also add the code for the About
Popup, and define our buttons
along with the bind statements.
This is shown on the next page, top
left.
Find the “s = GridLayout” line
and change the spacing from 10 to
4. Next, add the following line
after the s.bind line (right before
the for loop):
LoadLabels(0)
This calls the LoadLabels
routine with our default “which of
0.
Next, comment out the entire
for loop code. This starts with “for i
in range(0,19):” and ends with
“s.add_widget(btn)”. We don’t
need this since the LoadLabels
routine does this for us.
self.whichway=0
self.text1 = " C | B |A#/Bb| A |G#/Ab| G |F#/Gb| F | E |D#/Eb| D |C#/Db| C |"
self.text2 = " C | B |A#/Bb| A |G#/Ab| G |F#/Gb| F | E |D#/Eb| D |C#/Db| C | B |A#/Bb| A |G#/Ab| G |F#/Gb| F | E |D#/Ab| D |C#/Db| C |"
self.text3 = " C |C#/Db| D |D#/Eb| E | F |F#/Gb| G |G#/Ab| A |A#/Bb| B | C |"
self.text4 = " C |C#/Db| D |D#/Eb| E | F |F#/Gb| G |G#/Ab| A |A#/Bb| B | C |C#/Db| D |D#/Eb| E | F |F#/Gb| G |G#/Ab| A |A#/Bb| B | C |C#/Db|"
full circle magazine #65
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Greg is the owner of RainyDay
Solutions, LLC, a consulting company
in Aurora, Colorado, and has been
programming since 1972. He enjoys
cooking, hiking, music, and spending
time with his family. His website is
www.thedesignatedgeek.net.
HOWTO - PROGRAMMING IN PYTHON 37
Now, save your code and try to
run it. You should see a deep
purple button at the top, and our
pretty blue BoundLabels. Plus, you
will notice that the BoundLabels in
the scroll window are closer
together, which makes it much
easier to read.
We are almost through with our
code, but we still have a few things
to do. After the “sv = ScrollView”
line add the following line...
sv.size = (720, 320)
This sets the size of the
ScrollView widget to 720 by 320
which makes it wider within the
root window. Now, before the
“return root” line, add the code
shown top right.
Here we add the three buttons
to the AnchorLayout widgets,
create a GridLayout to hold the
AnchorLayouts, and then finally
add the AnchorLayouts to the
GridLayout.
Go back just below the “def
Swap routine and add the
following...
def ShowAbout(instance):
popup.open()
That’s it. Save and run the code.
If you click on the About button,
you will see the simple popup. Just
click anywhere outside of the
popup to make it go away.
Now our code is written. You
can find the full code at
http://pastebin.com/GftmjENs
Next, we need to create our
android package... but that will
have to wait for next time.
If you want to get set up and try
packaging for Android before next
month, you should go to
http://kivy.org/docs/guide/packagi
ng-android.html for the
documentation on this. Be sure to
follow the documentation
carefully.
See you next month.
al0 = AnchorLayout()
al1 = AnchorLayout()
al2 = AnchorLayout()
popup = Popup(title='About Transposer',
content=Label(text='Written by G.D. Walters'),
size_hint=(None,None),size=(400,400))
btnWhich = Button(text = "Piano ­­> Guitar",
size=(180,40),size_hint=(None,None))
btnWhich.bind(on_release=Swap)
btnAbout = Button(text="About",size=(180,40),
size_hint=(None,None))
btnAbout.bind(on_release=ShowAbout)
btnExit = Button(text="Exit", size=(180,40),
size_hint=(None,None))
btnExit.bind(on_release=exit)
al0.add_widget(btnWhich)
al1.add_widget(btnExit)
al2.add_widget(btnAbout)
bgl = GridLayout(orientation='vertical',
spacing=6, cols=3,rows=1,
row_default_height=40)
bgl.add_widget(al0)
bgl.add_widget(al1)
bgl.add_widget(al2)
full circle magazine #65
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Written by Elmer Perry
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hen building a
presentation, it is
important to
present the
information in a pleasing and
informative way. Using slide
transitions provides a visual move
from one topic to the next, and
using animations helps to inform
viewers or provide emphasis on
the current point. Overuse of
transitions and animations can
cause your presentation to look
less than professional. However,
the appropriate use of these
features will give your
presentation a polished and
professional appearance.
Slide Transitions
Transitions are the visual
changes made when moving from
one slide to the next. Transitions
provide a visual clue to the
audience that you are moving to a
new topic. In general, you will use
the same transition for all the
slides, but, in some cases, you will
want to use a different transition
to show the viewers a change of
topic.
With the slide you want to
change displayed in the main view,
select Slide Transition from the
Tasks pane. The selection list
provides you with a collection of
different slide transitions. If you
have Automatic preview checked at
the bottom of the Slide Transition
pane, you will see a preview of the
transition when you select it or
change its settings.
You can further modify the
transition in the Modify transition
section of the pane. Speed will
change the rate at which the slide
is displayed. Sound lets you play a
sound with the transition. You can
select a sound from the defaults
provided, or select your own. Once
you select a sound, you can select
Loop until next sound. You will
rarely have a use for this, but it is
there should you need it.
In the Advance slide section,
you set how and when you want
the slide to advance. On click
means the slide will display until
you click the mouse or press the
space-bar. Automatic after allows
you to automatically advance the
slide after a set number of
seconds. When selected, you can
adjust the number of seconds in
the spinner box.
At the bottom of the pane, you
have three buttons. Apply to All
Slides does what it says; it applies
the transition to all the slides in
the presentation. Play causes the
transition to run in the main view.
Slide Show starts the presentation
beginning with the current slide.
Animations
Animations are similar to
transitions, but instead of acting
on the slide, it acts on individual
objects in the slide. Animations
help create emphasis, flow, and
visual interest as you present the
objects on a slide. They keep the
audience aware of the current
subject, and act as a visual clue to
the presenter.
To create animations, first
select the slide which you want to
create animations for. Select the
object(s) you want to animate, and
open the Custom Animations pane
full circle magazine #65
11
HOWTO - LIBREOFFICE Pt18
in the Tasks pane. Click on Add,
which opens the animations dialog.
Here you can select the animation
you want for the object(s)
selected.
Impress provides four different
animation types:
Entrance: These animations play as
the object appears on the page.
Emphasis: These animations are
used to create emphasis such as
changing colors, blinking, etc.
Exit: These animations play as the
object leaves the page.
Motion Path: These animations
cause the object to follow a
defined path.
There is a fifth tab in the
animations dialog related to media
objects. They allow you to start,
stop, and pause media objects.
Once you have selected your
animation, click OK.
The Effect section of the
animation pane give you the ability
to fine-tune your animation. Start
controls what event will trigger
your animation. On Click will
trigger the animation when the
mouse button is clicked or you
press the space-bar. With Previous
triggers the animation when the
animation before it plays. After
Previous plays the animation after
the previous animation. The
second control relates directly to
the type of animation you select. If
it is a motion animation, it asks you
for a direction. If the animation
changes colors, it will asks you for
a color. Finally, the Speed controls
the speed at which the animation
plays.
full circle magazine #65
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Elmer Perry's history of working,
and programming, computers
involves an Apple IIE, adding some
Amiga, a generous helping of DOS
and Windows, a dash of Unix, and
blend well with Linux and Ubuntu.
HOWTO - LIBREOFFICE Pt18
Animation Example
The real power of animations
comes when you combine them to
create interesting effects for your
objects. In our example, the effect
we will create will display items in
a list one at a time. As the next
items displays, the previous one
will gray out. Finally, all the list
items will fade out before the slide
transition.
Create a new slide, and, in the
text area, add four list items.
Select all four list items, and click
Add in the Custom Animation
pane. On the Entrance tab, select
Fly In and click OK. Select each of
the animations in the animations
pane and set the start to on click,
direction to from bottom, and the
speed to a speed that looks good
on your machine.
For the color change effect,
select the first three items in the
text area of the slide, and click the
Add button. On the Emphasis tab,
select Change Font Color, and click
OK. For each of these three new
animations, change the start to
with previous, the color to gray,
and the speed to a speed that
looks good on your machine. Move
the color change animation for the
first item up using the Change
order arrows. Move it up under the
entrance animation for the second
item. Move the second change
color animation up under the third
entrance animation, and leave the
third color change under the
fourth entrance animation.
Finally, we will create the fade
for all the items. Select all four list
items in the slide's text area. Click
on Add in the animation pane. On
the Exit tab, select Dissolve and
click OK. Set the first exit to start
on click and the other three to
after previous. Select a speed for
the dissolve that works for your
machine.
Test your animations by clicking
on Slide Show in the animation
pane. If you set everything
correctly, each item should fly in
from the bottom and gray out
when you click the mouse. At the
end, all four items should dissolve.
Transitions and animation are
key to creating a professional
looking presentation. If you are
careful to not get carried away,
you can create a polished and
memorable presentation for your
audience. Remember that the idea
behind a presentation is to present
your ideas to your audience, not to
impress them with fancy, overdone
transitions and animations.
The Ubuntu Podcast covers all
the latest news and issues facing
Ubuntu Linux users and Free
Software fans in general. The
show appeals to the newest user
and the oldest coder. Our
discussions cover the
development of Ubuntu but
aren’t overly technical. We are
lucky enough to have some
great guests on the show, telling
us first hand about the latest
exciting developments they are
working on, in a way that we can
all understand! We also talk
about the Ubuntu community
and what it gets up to.
The show is presented by
members of the UK’s Ubuntu
Linux community. Because it is
covered by the Ubuntu Code of
Conduct it is suitable for all.
The show is broadcast live every
fortnight on a Tuesday evening
(British time) and is available for
download the following day.
podcast.ubuntu-uk.org
full circle magazine #65
13
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Written by Paddy Landau
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hen you installed
Ubuntu, perhaps you
didn’t opt for
encryption; or, you
added a user without encryption
but now, you have changed your
mind and want encryption. In other
words, you (or another user on the
computer) wants, but does not
have, encryption.
How do you add encryption
after the event?
Fortunately, this is quite easy.
There are three main steps:
Make an encrypted copy of your
folder.
Remove the original unencrypted
folder.
Encrypt your swap area. (You
need this last step only the very
first time you encrypt, whether it
was during installation or
following this how-to.)
I have tested this on Ubuntu
Precise 12.04 (fully updated).
Prepare
Due to an existing bug, you will
not be able to log in if your
wallpaper is in the home folder of
the user to be encrypted. If the
user has customized the wallpaper,
please ensure that it is not stored
within their home folder.
This procedure is safe as it
creates an encrypted copy of your
home folder. That does mean,
however, that you will have
sufficient space on your disk. If you
don’t have enough space, please
back up your data, delete large
files (e.g. movies), and restore
them after encryption. (I normally
recommend that you back up all
your data anyway in case of
accidental problems.)
Using your favorite package
manager, install ecryptfs-utils.
Encrypt
In this how-to, I’ve used my
name paddy as the user. Please
replace it with the user to be
encrypted.
Boot into Recovery Mode (when
you boot, press and hold Shift until
you get the Grub menu. The
“recovery mode” is usually the
second item from the top).
At the Recovery Mode menu,
select Drop to root shell prompt.
Enter the following commands
to fix existing bugs.
mount ­­options remount,rw /
mount ­­all
The following command
prompts for your password and
makes an encrypted copy of your
folder.
ecryptfs­migrate­home ­­user
paddy
When it has finished running,
you will see some warnings. Ignore
the warnings; but you do need to
take a note of the temporary
folder that it has created. It looks
something like
/home/paddy.ChPzzxqD, but the
last eight characters will be
random. You’ll need it when you
Finalize or Revert below.
Enter the following command
to reboot (it may take several
seconds to get going, so be
patient).
reboot now
Finalize
Now, log in normally. Does
everything work?
If it did not work, skip to Revert
below.
If it did work, finish up as
follows:
Open a terminal and enter this
command. Use the random-
character folder that you noted in
step 5 in Encrypt.
sudo rm ­R
/home/paddy.ChPzzxqD
Restore any data that you had
deleted (if any) in Prepare above.
Open a terminal and enter the
following command. If you already
had an encrypted user on your
system, you can safely skip this
full circle magazine #65
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HOWTO - ADD ENCRYPTION
step.
sudo ecryptfs­setup­swap
Reboot.
Revert
If your encryption did not
succeed, you’ll need to restore
your previous setup.
Repeat steps 1–3 from Encrypt
above.
Enter the following command
using your random-character
folder from step 5 in Encrypt. You
should not see an error; if you do,
ask for help.
ls ­l /home/paddy.ChPzzxqD
Now revert with the following
commands.
cd /home
rm ­R paddy .ecryptfs/paddy
mv paddy.ChPzzxqD paddy
Reboot.
I hope this helps you. If you
have insurmountable problems,
please post a query on my thread
on Ubuntu Forums
(http://ubuntuforums.org/showthr
ead.php?t=1987630).
Hibernate with
Encryption
A number of people have
wondered why Ubuntu has no
Hibernate option any more, and
how to restore it. The reason is
encryption. If you have encryption,
the swap space is also encrypted,
but with a random key. When you
hibernate, the data is stored to
your swap space; when you
resume, the random key is lost and
so the system cannot read the
swap space.
To restore hibernation to
Ubuntu if you do not have
encryption is easy just perform
only steps 6 and 8 in Set up
hibernation below.
But if you do have encryption,
you need to replace the random
key for swap with a passphrase of
your choosing.
Note, however, that every user
of the computer will need to know
that passphrase in order to boot!
I have tested this with Ubuntu
12.04 both natively and in Virtual
Box. The latter has a problem with
displaying the screen when
resuming, but the native
installation worked perfectly.
Prepare
Enter the following command.
sudo cryptsetup status
cryptswap1
In the results, you’ll see a line
indicating the device, which looks
something like /dev/sda1 or
/dev/sdb5. This is your swap
device. Take a note of it, as you’ll
need it later.
I always recommend a full
backup before changing your
system.
Set Up Hibernation
Enter the following commands.
Ensure you replace /dev/sdXN with
your swap device from Prepare
above. Please take care to type
them in the right order.
sudo swapoff
/dev/mapper/cryptswap1
sudo cryptsetup luksClose
/dev/mapper/cryptswap1
sudo cryptsetup luksFormat ­­
cipher aes­cbc­essiv:sha256
­­verify­passphrase ­­key­
size 256 /dev/sdXN
WARNING!
========
This will overwrite data on
/dev/sda1 irrevocably.
Are you sure? (Type uppercase
yes): YES
Enter LUKS passphrase: [type
your new passphrase]
Verify passphrase: [type your
new passphrase again]
sudo cryptsetup luksOpen
/dev/sdXN cryptswap1
Enter passphrase for /dev/sda1:
[type your new passphrase yet
again]
sudo mkswap
/dev/mapper/cryptswap1
sudo swapon ­­all
swapon ­s
The last command should
display a filename
/dev/cryptswap1.
Using your favorite editor (or
full circle magazine #65
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HOWTO - ADD ENCRYPTION
you can press Alt-F2 and enter
gksudo gedit), edit the file
/etc/crypttab. Replace the existing
cryptswap1 line as follows
(remember to replace /dev/sdXN
with your swap device).
cryptswap1 /dev/sdXN none
luks
Now edit the file
/usr/share/initramfs-
tools/scripts/local-top/cryptroot.
Search for the following line
(which should be on line 288, but
that could change over time):
message "cryptsetup: unknown
error setting up device
mapping"
Skip to the next blank line
(before FSTYPE='') and insert a
new line (remember to replace
/dev/sdXN):
/sbin/cryptsetup luksOpen
/dev/sdXN cryptswap1
Edit the file
/etc/acpi/hibernate.sh. At the first
blank line, insert the following line.
DEVICE='/dev/mapper/cryptswap
1'
Edit the file /etc/initramfs-
tools/conf.d/resume. Replace the
existing line with:
RESUME=/dev/mapper/cryptswap1
Edit the file /etc/polkit-
1/localauthority/50-
local.d/com.ubuntu.enable-
hibernate.pkla. The file does not
already exist, so you’ll be creating
it. Add the following lines.
[Re­enable hibernate by
default]
Identity=unix­user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.upower
.hibernate
ResultActive=yes
Finally, open a terminal and
enter the following command.
sudo update­initramfs ­u ­k
all
Reboot.
Using Hibernation
When starting, your machine
will prompt you for your new swap
passphrase. Enter it, and you
should continue to a normal login.
If you forget the passphrase,
enter anything. After three failed
attempts, the machine will
continue anyway, but with the
swap disabled. Redo this how-to to
reset your passphrase.
Now, you will find Hibernate on
your shutdown menu, and you can
hibernate! If you wish to hibernate
from the CLI (command line
interface), use the command:
sudo pm­hibernate
full circle magazine #65
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Written by Ronnie Tucker
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ast time, we joined two
clips with a dissolve (or
fading) transition. This
time, we’ll look at effects.
Transitions allow you to go from
one clip to another; an effect is
done on a particular clip to alter its
appearance.
Add a clip to a project, then
right click on it and have a look at
the effects available in the Add
Effect’ menu.
Effects are grouped according
to the desired effect. If I choose
Add Effect > Fun > Old Film and
Add Effect > Fun > Scratchlines,
the names of the effects applied
are shown on the preview, and (in
this case) my video will jump and
have imperfections as you’d expect
in an old film.
To remove effects, you simply
click the X above the effect in the
effect properties box beside the
list of clips.
This is the same place you can
edit the effect properties to your
liking.
Effects aren’t just for fun,
though. Applying Add Effect >
Enhancement > Denoiser (or
Sharpen) allows you to enhance
the look of your clip. The Add
Effect > Colour Correction effects
will allow you to fix the brightness,
contrast and colors within your
clip.
Although it may seem that I
haven’t shown much in these two
parts, it’s up to you to experiment
with overlapping clips and trying
out the different transitions
available. Same with effects. Try
them out, one at a time, to see
full circle magazine #65
17
Ronnie is the founder, and editor, of
Full Circle, an official Ubuntu
member, and part-time artist whose
work can be seen at:
http://ronnietucker.co.uk
HOWTO - KDENLIVE Pt 2
how they change your clip(s), and
in no time you’ll have amazing
looking clips merging into one
another.
Before finishing out this part,
I’d like to show you how to quickly
trim a clip. Let’s say you have your
perfect scene, but before the main
scene, it shows (let’s say) you
putting the camera down, and
then, at the end, it shows you
picking the camera up again.
Ideally you want to remove the
intro and ending from that clip to
leave only the steady perfect shot.
What you can do is drag the entire
clip into the video timeline, then
play/scrub through the video until
you find where you want the clip to
start. Stop there. Now, if you hover
your pointer of the start of the clip
you’ll see a green glowing arrow
appear. Drag that over to where
you want your start to be. You’ve
now trimmed the junk from the
start.
Now do the same at the end.
Voila! The perfect clip.
Here’s a nice tip, and something
for you to play around with until
next time. Many video shots are
handheld and quite shaky. Right
click on a clip (in your top left
window), and choose Stabilize >
Videostab. It can take some time to
complete (a little progress bar will
appear over the clip thumbnail), so
do it only on short clips for now.
If there’s anything you’d like to
see covered in this series, please
drop me an email at:
ronnie@fullcirclemagazine.org.
Next month, we’ll add some
titles to our video.
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Solutions are on the second last page.
Numbers 0 to 9 and letters A to F are to be filled into the
16x16 grid so that every row, every column, and every
4x4 box contains 0 to 9 and A - F.
Puzzles are copyright, and kindly provided by,
The Puzzle Club - www.thepuzzleclub.com
full circle magazine #65
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Written by Mark Crutch
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L
ast month, I introduced
the Fill and Stroke dialog
as a method for setting
flat colors or patterns on
your objects. The SVG specification
also allows for gradients to be
used, but, unfortunately, describes
only two types: linear and radial. If
you've used gradients in other
graphics programs, you may be
used to far more variety, but
Inkscape is bound by the
limitations of the SVG specification
so, for now at least, two gradient
types are all you have. Inkscape has
separate buttons for these in the
Fill and Stroke Paint tabs of the
dialog: as you might
expect, one looks like a
linear gradient:
and the other looks like a
radial gradient:
Whichever one you choose,
you'll be faced with the same user
interface within the dialog (above
right).
The first item is a pop-up list of
the gradients that already exist
within your document. The
currently selected gradient, at the
top of the list, will be the new one
that you're in the process of
creating. If you prefer to use an
existing gradient, then you can
simply select another one from the
list. Each gradient gets given a
user-unfriendly name, such as the
“linearGradient3791” in the
screenshot. Unfortunately,
Inkscape doesn't provide a
practical user interface for
modifying this name, so, once you
have more than a handful of
gradients in a document, it can
quickly become an unwieldy list
which gives little indication of
where each one is used in your
image.
Your new gradient will always
take the same basic form: it has a
start color which is set to a fully
opaque version of your current fill
color (or to black if there is no fill
color set), and it has an end color
which is the same as the start color
but with its alpha value set to
zero. The result is a gradient
running from an opaque color to a
transparent color which runs from
left to right for a linear gradient,
and from the center outwards for a
radial gradient:
If you double-click on your
object so that you enter editing
mode and can see the small
handles we've explored in previous
articles you'll also find that two
or three new handles have
appeared, joined by lines and
indicating the start and end points
of your gradients as square and
circular handles respectively. You
can drag these handles around
even outside the boundary of your
object in order to change the
position and angle of your
gradient. For radial gradients, the
two end points can be moved
independently, allowing you to
have circular or elliptical gradients.
When you click on one of the
gradient handles, you'll notice that
the Fill and Stroke dialog switches
back to the Flat Color mode, with
the selected color also reflected in
the swatches in the bottom-left
corner of the main Inskcape
window. The color you can see is
that of the selected end point of
full circle magazine #65
19
HOWTO - INKSCAPE Pt5
your gradient, and you can change
it in any of the ways we've
discussed previously. Try selecting
the transparent end, clicking on
another color swatch, and then
playing with the opacity slider or
the “O spin-box. This approach
lets you create gradients that
change smoothly between any two
colors.
A gradient with two colors is all
well and good, but what happens if
you want three, four, or a whole
rainbow? You could create multiple
objects, each with a part of the
overall gradient, but that quickly
gets complex and unwieldy. In
practice the answer is simpler than
you might think we just create
more handles on our gradients.
Instead of a start and end handle,
we'll have one or more in the
middle as well. These handles each
define a particular color in the
gradient, and are usually referred
to as “stops”.
To add a new stop to a gradient
we need to make it clear to
Inkscape that we want to edit the
gradient rather than the
object itself, by selecting
the Gradient tool:
from the toolbox (or by
pressing “g” or CTRL-F1). Now it's
possible to double-click on the line
that joins your existing stops in
order to add a new stop. It will
default to the color and opacity at
that point on the line, so the visual
appearance of your object won't
change but now that the new
stop exists, you can select it and
change its color. You can also drag
stops along the line, crowding
them together for a sharp
transition between colors, or
spreading them out for something
more gradual. Very quickly, it's
easy to create garish multi-colored
gradients, although more subtle
color changes between stops will
often give a better artistic effect.
While the Gradient tool is
active, you can still move the end
stops to modify the size and angle
of the gradient. When you're done,
just select your object using the
Select tool in order to return to the
familiar view of the Fill and Stroke
dialog with the gradient in place. A
useful shortcut for this step is to
just hit the space-bar. In most
cases, this will toggle between the
current tool and the Select tool,
switching back and forth with each
press.
Let's go back to a simpler
gradient with only two stops. The
quick way to do that is to switch
your fill to Flat Color, and then
back to a gradient again, returning
you to the default arrangement of
a fade from opaque to transparent
centered on your object. The Fill
and Stroke dialog should look like
the first image in this article once
more, giving us a chance to explore
the remaining options on the
screen.
The Duplicate button is almost
self explanatory. It duplicates
whichever gradient is currently
selected in the pop-up menu, and
applies the duplicate to the
currently selected object. That last
point is important it means that
you can happily change the stop
colors and positions in the
duplicated gradient without
affecting any objects that use the
original version. As such, it can be a
convenient starting point if you
already have a gradient that's close
to the one you need, but not quite
perfect.
The Edit… button we'll come
back to shortly.
The Repeat pop-up is used to
define what happens beyond the
start and end stops of your
gradient. The default setting is
“none”, in which case the area
before the start handle will take on
the same color as the start handle
itself, and the area beyond the end
handle will likewise take on the
color of the end stop. Both the
other settings repeat the gradient:
“reflected” causes the gradient to
reverse for each repeat, giving a
smooth transition that cycles as
Start-End, End-Start, Start-End,
End-Start…; “direct” uses the
gradient as it stands, giving a more
abrupt cycle of Start-End, Start-
End, Start-End, Start-End… As is
often the case, a picture
demonstrating this makes far more
sense than a textual description, so
here are three pairs of gradients
full circle magazine #65
20
Mark has been using Linux since
1994, and uses Inkscape to create
two webcomics, 'The Greys' and
'Monsters, Inked' which can both be
found at:
http://www.peppertop.com/
HOWTO - INKSCAPE Pt5
demonstrating “none,” “reflected”
and “direct” modes using the
gradients shown in the top pair:
Now we'll return to that Edit…
button. If you click it, you'll bring
up a gradient editor window. This
is an alternative interface for
editing gradients: you can add and
remove stops, change their
position within the gradient, and
alter their colors exactly the
same features that are available by
editing using the Gradient tool on
the canvas except that the editor
won't help you to change the
position and angle of your
gradients within your objects. The
gradient editor dialog has been
officially deprecated though, and
will likely be removed in a future
release in favor of some additions
to the on-canvas editing, so I won't
go into any more detail about it.
Throughout this article I've
talked about editing the fill. But
you can also apply a gradient to
your object's stroke. Here we have
two thick-stroked rectangles, one
with a linear gradient for the
stroke, and the other with a radial
gradient:
Being able to use a gradient for
the stroke can be a useful
workaround for one of SVG's (and
therefore Inkscape's) limitations:
strokes are always a fixed width.
This restriction makes it difficult to
draw lines that taper out, but using
a stroke that fades to transparent
can often give a similar visual
effect, especially with thin lines:
There is one feature that crops
up when using both fill and stroke
gradients which can sometimes
feel more like a bug: Inkscape likes
to 'help' by snapping the handles
of gradients together so that you
can manipulate them as one. In this
example, I've drawn a square with
a yellow fill and blue stroke, then
clicked the linear gradient buttons
in the Fill and Stroke dialog. It
looks like there's
only one pair of
gradient handles,
but that's because
one set is on top of
the other.
If you wish to modify just the fill
or the stroke gradient, the obvious
thing to do would be to grab the
visible handles and move them out
of the way to reveal the second
pair below, right? If you try that,
you'll find that Inkscape's
propensity for
snapping gradient
handles together
means that both
sets of handles
move as one.
The solution to this conundrum
is simply to hold the SHIFT button
as you drag the handles around.
This will let you
separate them, and
prevent them
snapping back
together if they get
too close to one
another.
Now that you can create
gradients, perhaps it's time to
replace the simple blurred shading
on your snowman with some radial
gradients, to give him a little more
depth. Don't forget linear
gradients for his nose, arms, hat
and pipe.
As a
finishing
touch, a
nicely
shaded sky
is usually
more
interesting
than a flat
plane.
full circle magazine #65
21
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Written by Michael R. Youngblood
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hat is a CRUD? CRUD
is an acronym for
Create, Remove,
Update, and Display:
the main basic premise for any app.
Remember, a program is just a
way to create, edit, and display
data. It really doesn’t matter if it is
an office app, or even a game, all it
is doing is taking data inputed, and
either creating, removing, or
updating the current sets of data.
To start off we need an idea.
We could go with the usual
suspects: to-do lists, recipes, and
shopping lists. I was thinking of
something a little more specific to
Ubuntu, an app that tells us
versions of Ubuntu. This is an idea
that has plenty of possibilities to
grow with, so let’s get started.
Side note: if you are having
troubles choosing a good text
editor to code with, I would like to
suggest my favorite. Sublime Text
2 is a very feature-packed and
stable editor and I tend to have a
lot of fun with it. I also rely on it a
lot. Here is a URL to a quick review
I did a while back, if you are
interested in reading more about
it:
http://www.aliendev.com/program
ming/review-sublime-text-2
First we need to think about the
information that we need to keep.
The version number and names are
good enough to start off with. Now
that we know what we are going to
do, we need to get set up... Create
your working folder; I’m going to
call mine FCM-UbuntuVers. Inside
of that, create your css, images, js,
and js/libs folders. Now create
some blank files: index.html in the
root, style.css
in css, and
main.js in the
js folder.
Below is a
screenshot of
the directory
map to give
you the big
picture.
Now, we can get to some
coding. I like to start out with my
standard HTML5 template. The
template is pretty straightforward
assuming you have even a little
experience with HTML5. First there
is the doctype, with the value of
just html telling the document
object that it is, you guessed it,
HTML5. There is a UTF-8
declaration, title tag, some meta
data, stylesheet call, the body of
the HTML, our header, article, and
footer tags, and of course the main
js call.
Next we are going to add a
basic form, making sure to include
id’s, placeholders, value, and name
attributes. We also want to include
labels for good practice. The full
HTML example is at:
http://pastebin.com/TtReQAWb.
Now that we have our HTML,
we need to make sure we add
something to test the CSS and JS
files that we are including within
the HTML. This task is easy enough,
just include a line per file like so:
main.js
alert(‘JS included’);
style.css
footer { color: #ccc; }
Now, it is time to view the setup
in your web browser. Notice the
popup alert telling you the JS was
included. For the CSS test, direct
your attention to the footer. The
color of the text should be a light
gray.
Now that we are all set, prepare
yourself. Next month, we will go
over the code more closely.
Cheers!
Michael Youngblood has been in the
industry of web design and
development for 13 years. He has
been working for a world wide
wireless tech corp for six years and is
working on his bachelor’s of science
in mobile development.
full circle magazine #65
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Guidelines
T
he single rule for an
article is that it must
somehow be linked to
Ubuntu or one of the
many derivatives of Ubuntu
(Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc).
Rules
There is no word limit for articles,
but be advised that long articles
may be split across several issues.
For advice, please refer to the
Official Full Circle Style Guide:
http://url.fullcirclemagazine.org/7
5d471
Write your article in whichever
software you choose, I would
recommend LibreOffice, but most
importantly - PLEASE SPELL AND
GRAMMAR CHECK IT!
In your article, please indicate
where you would like a particular
image to be placed by indicating
the image name in a new
paragraph or by embedding the
image in the ODT (Open Office)
document.
Images should be JPG, no wider
than 800 pixels, and use low
compression.
Do not use tables or any type of
bold or formatting.
If you are writing a review,
please follow these guidelines :
When you are ready to submit
your article please email it to:
articles@fullcirclemagazine.org
Translations
If you would like to translate
Full Circle into your native
language please send an email to
ronnie@fullcirclemagazine.org and
we will either put you in touch with
an existing team, or give you
access to the raw text to translate
from. With a completed PDF, you
will be able to upload your file to
the main Full Circle site.
REVIEWS
Games/Applications
When reviewing games/applications please state clearly:
title of the game
who makes the game
is it free, or a paid download?
where to get it from (give download/homepage URL)
is it Linux native, or did you use Wine?
your marks out of five
a summary with positive and negative points
Hardware
When reviewing hardware please state clearly:
make and model of the hardware
what category would you put this hardware into?
any glitches that you may have had while using the hardware?
easy to get the hardware working in Linux?
did you have to use Windows drivers?
marks out of five
a summary with positive and negative points
You don't need to be an expert to write an
article - write about the games, applications
and hardware that you use every day.
UPDATED!
full circle magazine #65
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https://spideroak.com
Get 25% off any SpiderOak package
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full circle magazine #65
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Written by Copil Yáňez
H
i, everyone! Welcome
back to Ask the New
Guy! If you’re new to
Ubuntu, thinking about
switching to Linux, or need
something explained to you like
you’re five, look no further. Send
your (simple) questions to me at
copil.yanez@gmail.com and I’ll do
my best to answer them.
Today I’m going to answer a
question a lot of new users,
including myself, ask upon
boarding the good ship Ubuntu:
Q: What the hell is a command
line?!
For many of us, the command
line is kinda daunting. Oh, who am I
kidding, it’s foreboding and scary.
I mean look at it, just sitting
there, staring at you with its one
good eye, blinking away. Waiting.
Even so, you can’t swing a
penguin around here without
hitting someone going on and on
about pipe this and chown that. If
the command line is so spooky,
why do so many seemingly sane
people use it? It’s as if the Linux
community is populated by cliche
horror movie characters, the kind
who hear knife-y type sounds in
the basement and go investigate in
their Pajama Pants instead of
calling the police.
I mean, what are command line
users getting out of the experience
(other than re-living their Matthew
Broderick War Games fantasies)?
After all, Ubuntu is so user-friendly.
Need to open a program? Just click
a few menus and you’re there.
Better yet, under Unity, just type
the program’s name and watch
icons appear as if by magic and
then click the one you want.
This user-friendliness gives rise
to the second most common
reaction to the command line
besides screaming Bloody Mary
and losing bowel control. New
users who are not scared of the
command line think it’s, well,
boooooring.
Try to explain to a reluctant
new user how cool the command
line is. It’s a little like trying to
explain Mutually Assured
Destruction to a modern teenager.
They can tell it means something
to you because your face is all red
and that vein on your forehead is
about to pop. But as soon as you
leave the room, they jump on
Twitter:
You want to shake them and say
“We were scared, son! Duck and
cover was a thing!” But, of course,
it all just seems so quaint to them.
Well, it turns out the command
line is not nearly as scary as some
think, nor is it the digital
equivalent of a Matlock rerun, of
interest only to the old timers.
It’s actually useful to new users
and even more so for those who
spend a little time getting
comfortable with it.
But let’s back up and start with
a definition. On second thought,
forget that. I just looked it up and
there was talk about CLIs, old
teleprinter machines, something
called TTY, shells, and then I
noticed the Google Doodle was
Star Trek and, well, I got
distracted.
Let’s just say the command line
is a place where you type
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commands. Then, when you press
ENTER, stuff happens.
Boom. Checkmate, Wikipedia.
Okay, so how do you use it?
In the same way that the best
camera for you isn’t the most
expensive one it’s the one you’ll
actually use the best way to use
the command line is in a way that
encourages you to keep using it.
When I initially looked into
using the command line, it was like
dating a spider women: lots of
anxiety and a very real fear I might
die.
Then I decided to try it only on
relatively simple or repetitive tasks
until I became more comfortable
with it.
For example, I use the
command line in the same way I
use keyboard shortcuts like ctrl-x
and ctrl-v. I cut and paste so often,
using menus would interrupt my
workflow and slow things down.
What’s a common task you can
try doing at the command line to
get you comfortable using it? My
guess is you open the same
browser every time you log onto
your computer. Let’s start there.
Go to your Ubuntu desktop (or
whatever flavor Linux you’re
running, this should work on most
installs).
Press ctrl-alt-t. You should see
something like this.
Remember him, the creeper?
Don’t panic, I went back and
checked with his exes. Turns out
he’s not a creeper, he’s just shy
around people.
Okay, so what are we looking
at? It’s called a terminal window
and blah, blah, blah. Who cares? All
you need to know for now is that
the flashing cursor is where you
type your commands. All the
gibberish before the cursor doesn’t
really matter either. Time enough
to explore that stuff later if you’re
still interested. For now let’s keep
it super simple.
So you’ve got a window like the
one above and that blinking cursor
insists you do something or it’s just
going to cross its arms and stare at
you (his exes says he does that
sometimes, too—totally harmless).
Let’s give it something to do.
Type:
firefox
and press ENTER.
What happened?
If a Firefox browser window
opened, pat yourself on the back
and buy yourself that pair of suede
peek-a-boo toe Louboutins you’ve
always wanted. You’re a command
line user now, time to reward
yourself!
Okay, so you’re thinking, “Wait,
that took longer than double-
clicking my browser icon or finding
it on a menu.”
Maybe. But now try this. Close
the terminal window. Firefox
should close with it.
Type ctrl-alt-t again. When the
terminal window returns and you
get the blinking cursor, press the
up arrow key on your keyboard.
The word firefox will magically
appear! Press ENTER. Firefox is
back! You’re a rock star!
The command line remembers
what you did last. So, even long
strings of commands can be called
up instantly and run without ever
taking your fingers off the
keyboard.
Admittedly, this is a very
simplistic example. You can
experiment with other commands
like ls (lists the contents of the
directory you’re in) or cd filename
(switches you to the directory you
specify). When you decide you
want to try something at the
command line (like download and
install a program), just type what
you want to do into a search
engine and you’ll typically find a
tutorial to help. Or send me an
email and I’ll help if I can.
The point is, start with things
that are useful to you and that are
within your comfort zone, and then
move to more complex commands
as you gain confidence.
Think of the command line as
the $107,000 Nissan GT-R sports
car we all get with every Ubuntu
install (if you haven’t received your
car yet, get in touch with Mark
ASK THE NEW GUY
full circle magazine #65
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Shuttleworth right away). It’s
incredibly powerful, somewhat
dangerous if used incorrectly, and
it can be a beast to handle. Using
the command line to run simple,
repetitive tasks is the equivalent
of toggling LAUNCH CONTROL on
the GT-R to keep you from
splattering yourself all over the
pavement.
Once you feel more
comfortable you can switch the
toggle to STUPID FAST and floor
the accelerator!
Look, I’m not proselytizing here.
I’ll be the first to tell you to stay
away from the command line if it
just doesn’t add value to your
computing experience, or, worse
yet, sours you on Ubuntu or Linux.
But, sometimes fear or
misperception keeps us from
learning simple, useful commands.
Start with these and you’re more
likely to keep using the command
line in the future.
I hope this has encouraged you
to take a plunge into the command
line if you haven’t experienced it
already. Very soon you’ll be piping
and chowning like a boss!*
* I have no idea what pipe and
chown do but they sound mildly
pornographic so I’m willing to give
them a try.
If you have a simple question
and want an answer that doesn’t
look like a nuclear reactor
schematic, contact me at
copil.yanez@gmail.com.
ASK THE NEW GUY
Copil is an Aztec name that roughly
translates to “you need my heart for
what again?” His love of women’s
shoes is chronicled at
yaconfidential.blogspot.com. You
can also watch him embarrass
himself on Twitter (@copil).
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Solutions are on the second last page.
Every number in the grid is 'code' for a letter of the alphabet.
Thus the number '2' may correspond to the letter 'L', for instance.
All - except the difficult codeword puzzles - come with a few
letters to start you off
Puzzles are copyright, and kindly provided by,
The Puzzle Club - www.thepuzzleclub.com
full circle magazine #65
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Written by Charles McColm
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n issues #62 and #64 I wrote
about Tweet Screen, a twitter
picture frame I created using
an aging Celeron-based
notebook and a picture frame. The
frame was inspired by a smaller
Twitter screen I saw at a Kitchener,
Ontario, Canada makerspace,
Kwartzlab.
Kwartzlab membership for
anytime access is $50/month, but
the group holds an open night to
the public every Tuesday night and
often holds other open events on
Saturdays (such as an Ubuntu
release party or global bug jam).
Kwartzlab is over 3000 square
feet of maker goodness. In the
main meeting space/wifi lounge,
the group has several
workstations, soldering benches,
an array of screwdrivers and
smaller tools, as well as a number
of measurement instruments.
Off to the left of the space,
barely visible in the photo below
left is a computer running RepRap
Mendel software on Ubuntu Linux,
which controls a 3D printer. The
yellow spool feeding the printer is
polylactide (PLA), a kind of
polyester made from renewable
resources. Kwartzlab members
have used the printer to fabricate
parts for other projects and
models.
Visible next to the 3D printer
are several examples of laser
etched pictures (plus a small
Tardis) etched/cut on the space’s
large laser cutter. Designs are
inputted into a notebook, then
sent to the cutter. The etching
cutting process can take a long
time depending on what’s being
full circle magazine #65
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LINUX LAB
created so time is typically booked
on the laser cutter.
Member Mark Pitcher was the
first to show me some of the
projects he’s been working on.
Mark has owned several midi-
sequencers in the past, but wanted
something more portable, so he
started putting together a couple
of ideas for mini-midi sequencers,
one of which is arduino driven. He
also showed me an older electronic
drum kit he’s been in the process
of restoring and an arduino-driven
tripod mount that rotates at
programmable intervals for
panoramic photography.
Kwartzlab has an artist in
residence every month. This month
Tracy Fewster was exhibiting her
acrylic work and took the time to
talk with me about how she
became an artist, and to give
advice for aspiring artists. Tracy’s
journey into the art world began
and almost ended with a teacher
telling her that her artwork was
substandard. Determination and
love of what she was doing drove
Tracy to continue developing her
passion. Tracy suggests reading
about art, continuously
investigating different techniques,
and searching the Internet to
clarify anything that isn’t clear, is a
good way to improve.
Shortly after talking with Tracy,
the room got called to order for a
presentation by Eva Bodahelyi, a
visitor from a Guelph, Ontario,
makerspace called Diyode, on
Laser etching. Kwartzlab members
have cut and etched a fair amount
of art (including a 3D model of a
Tardis), but Eva has refined the
etching technique using
PhotoShop and GIMP so more
detailed pictures can be printed.
On open nights Kwartzlab
encourages people to bring
projects they want to work on.
Besides the laser cutter, 3D
printer, and various measurement
tools, Kwartzlab has a whole back
room full of other machining
equipment. Among the equipment
is a CNC router which member Don
Liebold hacked together using a
controller, dremel, and a man-sized
old tape storage unit. Also among
the available equipment are
welding systems, a centrifuge, 2
band saws, a table saw, 2 drill
presses, a belt sander, routing
table, and a radial saw. This tool
list covers only the basics. Kwartlab
is always adding equipment and
improving the space.
Subsequent to my visit at
Kwartzlab, I met member Darcy
Casselman at an Ubuntu Hour
event. Darcy brought me up to
speed on the Kwartzlab Twitter
screen, actually a Chumby device
running the Chumby Twitter plug-
in.
Thanks to all the Kwartzlab
members for talking with me and
for being so generous by allowing
Full Circle Magazine to display
them and their maker projects and
works of art.
More details about Kwartzlab can
be found on their web site at:
http://www.kwartzlab.ca/
The Diyode maker space also
maintains a web presence:
http://www.diyode.com/
Charles is a step-father, husband,
and Linux fan, who hosts a not-for-
profit computer refurbishing
project. When not breaking
hardware/servers, he maintains a
blog at:
http://www.charlesmccolm.com/
full circle magazine #65
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Written by:
Ronnie Tucker (KDE)
Jan Mussche (Gnome)
Elizabeth Krumbach (XFCE)
Mark Boyajian (LXDE)
R
arely will anyone want
to continually type a
networked folder by
name, and this is where
network drive mapping comes in
handy. In Windows XP you can
assign an unused drive letter to a
folder on the network. In the
example above
\\storage01\sharename (a folder
on the network) will become W: in
My Computer. A similar thing can
be done in most *buntu distros.
Kubuntu
Drive mapping in Kubuntu is
quite easy. Simply browse through
your network until you find a folder
you would like a shortcut to. Right
click on the folder and choose Add
to places”.
Your folder will show on the list
in the left panel. The globe
signifies a network item.
You can remove the item from
the list by right clicking on it and
choosing “Remove entry...”.
You can use this handy trick as a
sidebar shortcut for almost any
folder local or networked.
Gnome-Shell
In Gnome-Shell this works
almost the same. First, find the
folder or disk you want to mount in
Nautilus, then right-click it and
choose Mount. The mounted folder
will now appear in the left column
in Nautilus. From there you can
choose it as if it were a local folder.
When you want to un-mount it, just
right-click on the mounted folder in
the left panel of Nautilus and
choose un-mount.
This is nice, but needs to be
done every time you boot your
computer since the mount won’t
last. For a sticky mount you have to
use the /etc/fstab file. In this file all
disks and folders which need to be
mounted during boot are listed. A
normal samba way of mounting a
full circle magazine #65
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network disk or folder is:
//192.168.1.1/Back­Up
/home/jan/shares/Back­Up
cifs
rw,username=guest,password=,u
id=1000,iocharset=utf8,codepa
ge=unicode,unicode 0 0
Red part: address of network
folder in your network
Blue part: address of local mount
point
Grey part: cifs is synonym for the
samba protocol
Orange part: options you want to
add. These options work for guest-
access with read-write
permissions.
Be careful when editing this
file. It is a system file and can be
edited only by root. This should tell
you enough. Once damaged you
will have a really bad time fixing it
again. So, make a copy first before
you start editing.
It goes without saying that the
folder you want to mount should
be shared on the network. This can
be done like this:
As root, open the file
/etc/samba/smb.conf in gedit. This
is the file on the other computer,
the one with the folder you want
to look into. When this is a
Windows computer then it is only
necessary to add the computer to
the same network as your Linux
computer.
Make sure the following items
are in the smb.conf file.
[global]
workgroup = “Networkname you
use”
netbios name = “Computername”
[Home­Jan] # Name of
shared folder
path = /home/jan/ # full
path
guest ok = yes # guest
login without credentials is
allowed
writable = yes #
guests are allowed to write
The [global] section is written
once at the beginning of the file,
the shared folder part needs to be
written here for every folder you
want to share of course with
different share name and path.
Reboot both systems, where it
is mandatory to boot the one with
the shared folder first. This way,
when the other computer boots
and the file fstab is being read, the
shared folder is present and can be
booted. Should you boot the other
computer first, no worries. Open a
terminal and type:
sudo mount ­a
Now fstab will be read again
and all folders will be booted.
Xubuntu
In Xubuntu, you can access
networked drives via the Thunar
file manager by going to
“Network” in the left hand panel
and navigating to the share.
You can then click on and drag
the share or specific directory you
wish to map over to the left hand
panel. This will map the location to
the panel for the duration of your
session.
Lubuntu
To “map a network drive in
Lubuntu, you use the file manager,
PCManFM. For the purposes of this
exercise, it is assumed that you
already have access to the network
drive you want to map. With the
CLOSING WINDOWS
full circle magazine #65
31
file manager open, enter the
address of the network drive you
want to access so that you are
connected to it.
Once you are connected to the
drive you want to map, from the
menu bar in the file manager
select Bookmarks > Add To
Bookmarks.
You are then prompted for a
name for the bookmark.
The “bookmark”, in this case, is
the name you wish to assign to the
network drive to which you are
attached.
Click the OK button and the
network drive will be mapped to
the name you provided in the
dialog box.
The “bookmark” to the drive
will appear in the left pane of the
file manager.
Each time you boot into
Lubuntu, the system will respond
to this “bookmark” by attempting
to connect to the drive to which it
points. If the drive is found, then
clicking on this “bookmark” will
display the contents of the
network drive.
You can rename or remove the
bookmark by right-clicking it and
selecting the desired function.
Renaming the bookmark does not
affect its ability to connect to the
network drive you specified.
Next month we'll look at file
associations. If a file is associated
with an application then the OS
will automatically load the
application and open the file
when you open the file.
CLOSING WINDOWS
Ubuntu Needs You
Future Of The Papercuts Project
The Hundred Papercuts project is
vitally important to Ubuntu. As well as
focusing on the minor/trivial bugs that
developers typically triage down the
back of the desk, it provides a point of
entry for new contributors to learn the
processes involved in Ubuntu
development, get to grips with the
tools and find their way around the
code without getting in over their
heads.
The initial drive and enthusiasm with
which the project kicked off during the
Karmic cycle was all but faded into the
night, putting that value at risk. With
the help of the remaining contributors,
the Ubuntu Desktop team and the
community at large, this plan will
breath new life into what should be
the crown jewel in community
involvement in Ubuntu.
Discussion of ideas is taking place on
the Papercuts Ninja mailing list. You
can sign up to this list by joining the
Papercuts Ninja team on Launchpad.
The document is not, by any stretch of
the imagination, complete. It will
evolve over time with input from
various parts of the community until a
clear and concise plan for reviving the
papercuts project is established.
More information is available at:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FutureOfTh
ePapercutsProject
full circle magazine #65
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Written by Theo van Oosten
W
hen I got my first
diode and resistor
from my father
when I was 11 years
old, it was clear what I was going
to be when I grew up. I tinkered
about with all kinds of electronics
including logic circuits from the
Texas Instruments 74LS00 family
chips (does anybody remember
those?). At the university,
somebody told me about
something called a microprocessor.
There was the Intel 8080, the
Motorola 6800, and a new kind: the
Zilog Z80 at a whopping 2.5 MHz!
The Z80A runs even at 4 MHz !
Wow….
So I build my own computer
from parts, with an enormous
amount of memory: 16 K bytes.
Dynamic memory of course, if I
wanted to use static memory I
could get only 4 Kbyte at the same
price. Sensitive stuff though,
dynamic memory. Without refresh,
it could remember what I put in it
for only a few seconds. I was happy
to use an EPROM (Erasable
Programmable Read Only Memory)
to contain the OS, because a hard
disk costs as much as a new car,
and even the new 8 inch floppy
drive costs a month salary. So I
used a compact cassette drive to
act as a floppy, slow, but it worked.
Programming was done by hand in
(hexadecimal) machine code, so I
knew everything there is to know
about the Z80, even the
undocumented instructions! I
made my own version of CP/M, the
predecessor of DOS, from
specifications. I impressed all the
people around me with my
printouts did I have a print shop?
But the screen was text only.
Then the world changed. At first
there was the Atari 1040ST
(Motorola 68000 processor
at 16 MHz), and later
the Atari Falcon
(Motorola 68030
processor at
32 MHz) with
a beautiful
graphical
interface
(like
Windows
has, years
later).
Microsoft DOS and later Windows
was rubbish (and it still is), so I
refused to use it. But Atari went
bust, and in the shops you could
buy programs only for Windows, so
at last I caved and I bought me a PC
with Windows 98.
A few years before that (1984), I
got a job at a very large
steelmaking company where I
learned to program a very
advanced type of computer, the
Digital Equipment Corporation
(DEC) PDP 11 with the RSX 4.5
operating system. I got this job
because I had written programs in
machine code, and they just
bought a $100,000 program,
written in machine code,
which needed to be
altered to fit their
needs.
These PDP
11’s were
programmed
in a high level
programming
language
called RTL2 (I
do not think you
have ever heard of it). Later, we
switched to the DEC VAX with the
OpenVMS operating system, and
started programming in Pascal. It
became a lot easier then. We are
still using these computers, 25
years later! Why? Because they do
NOT crash, and viruses do not
exist. At one tim,e we decided to
reboot one of our VAX’s because it
had been running flawlessly for 2.5
years and we were not sure if it
would reboot correctly after a
(rare) crash (never happened), so
we wanted to do the reboot at our
convenience, without the pressure
from production. Of course,
without any problem.
After working there for 28
years, I expected programming to
become more functional versus
technical, but what happened?
Microsoft happened. They have
taken over the world, we are
programming in C again (back into
time), and the computers have to
be rebooted at least every month,
if only to update bad operating
system programs and the virus
protection.
full circle magazine #65
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MY STORY
When I caved and started to use
Windows, I was looking around for
an alternative. At the university I
was using Unix, but that looked
unusable. There was also Linux,
with RedHat and other
distributions, but it looked harder
to work with than Windows. The
“read me first” documentation was
several hundred pages long. At a
large computer conference, I was
offered a free CD with something
new, named Ubuntu. I never heard
of it before, and the CD lay around
on my desk for years without being
used. But the name Ubuntu kept
coming back in the media, and,
when there was an “introduction
party” (everybody loves a good
party) for Ubuntu 10.04 Long Term
Support, I decided that it was time
to learn more about it. Well, it
wasn’t a real party, but everywhere
there were happy looking faces
and I was impressed with what I
saw. Especially Virtualbox got my
attention. When I left, I got a FREE
CD with Ubuntu on it. How can it
be FREE? Even the CD itself must
have cost a lot of money to
produce especially that large
number of CD's. But I learned that
Ubuntu is more than an operating
system. It is part of a community in
which people do things for others,
gladly, without asking for payment
of any kind, although a thank you
note is appreciated.
I installed a dual-boot and was
surprised with the short time it
took (15 minutes instead of a
whole day, no motherboard drivers
needed, etc.). When I tried to
change the visual effects, it told
me it did not have the drivers to do
that (bummer). And then it asked:
“shall I get it for you?”. Yes, of
course! All done.
But I needed a lot of time to get
used to the Ubuntu way. And I also
needed to get things done, so I
went back to using Windows. I
tried several times, whenever I had
the time to play around (full job,
single parent, girlfriend an hour
drive away), but I gave up when I
bought a new CPU/motherboard
and Ubuntu refused to work on the
new CPU. But I did keep Googling
about Ubuntu, and found an ISO-
file with Ubuntu 10.04.2 on the
Ubuntu website. Later I realised
that I could expect this, as 10.04 is
a LTS version, and my new CPU did
not exist when 10.04 was created,
so it needed to be updated.
At this moment, I am using
11.10 because I wanted to program
in Pascal, and 10.04 did not have
Lazarus/FreePascal in its
repository. The rare Windows
programs for which there are no
suitable Linux replacement (yet)
are running in (each his own)
VirtualBox virtual computer.
Everything beautiful and
perfect? Unfortunately…. no. In
the early days of Ubuntu, there
were bugs in the programs and
even in the kernel. But as time
progressed, things got better.
Bugs were fixed, the kernel
became more stable, things
became more intuitive to
accomplish (GUI instead of
terminal…). But then there was
Unity. All kinds of things didn’t
work any more, and the internet
was filled with people telling the
world this was wrong. To start a
program you need to know and
type its name instead of selecting
it from a list with a mouse click, as
in Windows. If I would be a
Windows convert, I would walk
away and never look back. What
are the people behind Ubuntu
thinking? In a forum about creating
desktop icons to start a program,
one of the developers of Unity
replied with “It’s only 50% ready,
the next version will have
everything fixed”. My reply was
that “if it is not ready, do not
full circle magazine #65
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MY STORY
distribute it. To beat Windows,
Ubuntu can not afford to be less
than perfect.” Then the
“liboverlay_scrollbar”. Lazarus was
not adapted to it yet, and I got all
kinds of crazy errors. Thanks to the
Lazarus forum it was fixed within a
day (try that on Windows!!!!), but it
shows that new things are
introduced not as an option, but
obligatory. That is “not done” in an
open software environment.
Did they forget that the USER
has to be in control? Change the
desktop to his needs and taste,
and get things done without
looking for hours for a way to do it
or having to type commands in a
terminal, or even change settings
in system files with great risk of
breaking his system. As a system
designer (I have created a lot of
human-machine interfaces, drivers
and applications), and end-user at
the same time, it is my opinion that
the look and feel of a desktop
should be adjustable and not
depend on the “engine” that is
used to activate/display it. It
should be intuitive, so I can use it
without having to read manuals.
For example: If I want to change
the background, I must be able to
simply right-click on an empty part
of the screen and get an interface
to specify my wishes (like on
Windows). In Ubuntu, I have to
browse through tons of programs
to find an application that is
capable of doing many different
things, among them the
adjustment of the screen. A very
annoying behaviour I came across
is the fact that the border of a
window is by default only one pixel
wide. Just try to click on it with
your mouse to grab it and move it
to resize the window! On average
that takes me three tries, with (if
you “miss-click” outside the
window) the chance of the
unwanted effect of the window
below it popping up (or even doing
something unwillingly if a button
was in that place). There are
themes with thicker border lines,
but there are only a few available
after installation, and finding a
suitable one on the Internet is very
hard, because of the choices,
choices, CHOICES you get. It may
be an advantage of open software
that you have so much to choose
from, but too many choices is
equally as bad as only a few
choices.
But everything is not lost yet.
Once the people behind Ubuntu
give us back the choice of the look
and feel of the desktop, we can
start again telling people who use
Windows how great Ubuntu is, and
offer them a stable and reliable
platform that looks and feels like
Windows, but is not. In the
meantime I will use Gnome classic.
full circle magazine #65
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M
M
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Y
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Written by Kevin B. O'Brien
T
he words we use to
describe what we do can
matter a lot in how we in
the FOSS community
think about what we do. Once
upon a time, there was Free
Software, as defined by Richard
Stallman in the famous Four
Freedoms:
The freedom to run the program,
for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedom to study how the
program works, and change it so it
does your computing as you wish
(freedom 1). Access to the source
code is a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute
copies so you can help your
neighbor (freedom 2).
The freedom to distribute copies
of your modified versions to others
(freedom 3). By doing this you can
give the whole community a
chance to benefit from your
changes. Access to the source code
is a precondition for this.
Now, I happen to be a big
supporter of this. I love the idea of
Free Software. And I have noticed
that some people I greatly respect,
such as Jon ‘maddog’ Hall, are
always careful to refer to it as Free
Software. Nonetheless, there are
problems with this terminology. If
you have been around FOSS for
very long, you have noticed that
the word “free admits of several
meanings, one of which has to with
the cost. And that was never the
point in FOSS. There is nothing in
the definition of FOSS or in the
GPL that says you are prohibited
from charging for your software.
And, because of the ambiguity in
“free,” we have to be careful to use
“Free As In Freedom” to denote
what Stallman meant by the Four
Freedoms, as distinct from “Free
As In Beer” to denote lack of a
monetary price.
A later term was developed
called Open Source, which put the
focus on making the source code
freely available. Now, it is clear
from the Four Freedoms above
that this is essential to Free
Software, so I am not sure just how
big a difference this makes. But if
you want to explain to the average
user why any of this matters, you
have to acknowledge that the
average user really doesn’t care if
the source code is available since
they can never imagine themselves
trying to modify the code. In point
of fact, I would expect that it is
highly likely that I will go to my
grave without ever attempting to
modify the code of any software I
use. I am not a programmer, and I
don’t have any desire to be one. I
like programmers, some of my best
friends are programmers, and the
world is undoubtedly a better
place because of programmers,
but I don’t think that is my role in
FOSS. So I don’t have a strong
interest in looking at the source
code. And to you in the back with
your hand up, I agree that it would
be silly to buy a car that had the
hood welded shut, but I don’t
repair my own cars either. Instead I
support the economy by helping a
mechanic to earn a semi-honest
living.
The term I have adopted for
this purpose is to call what we do
“Community-Supported Software,”
because I think that puts the
emphasis where it more properly
belongs, at least for some uses. If
we value this software, I think we
all have a responsibility to support
it in whatever way we can. Some
do that as programmers, but the
rest of us have a role to play. And I
want to explore some of those
options (and maybe motivate some
people to get involved). Because I
think it is true that freedom is
never free. It requires all of us to
take part in defending and
supporting it.
Bug Hunting
I’ve already mentioned that
Free Software should more
properly be considered
“Community-Supported” software,
and I said I would come back to
discuss just what that means.
There are lots of ways for
someone to support Free
Software, but one of the most
important is by submitting bugs to
the developers. Remember that
these fine people are creating
wonderful software with minimal
budgets, and that means they
cannot possibly test their software
under all possible conditions. Many
of us (myself included) build our
full circle magazine #65
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MY OPINION
own computers out of parts we
mix and match, everyone installs
their own custom blend of
software, etc. Under the
circumstances, you have to expect
that we will stumble over
problems that no one knew about.
And the only way they can get
fixed and the software improved
for everyone is by filing bugs. This
is how the developers get
informed about the problems, and
is step one to fixing them.
The first place to look for filing
bugs is with your distro. The major
distros tend to have online bug-
tracking mechanisms of some kind,
and they will have specific
directions on how to file a bug.
They may decide that it should go
upstream (i.e. the bug is in a
package that they included but
don’t directly support), but it is
really never wrong to start with
the distro. If you want to read
more about this, a good place to
start is at LinuxCareeer.com. Note
how they start off their discussion:
This site gives more specific
instructions for Ubuntu, Mint,
Fedora, Debian, and openSUSE. But
if you use some other distro, just
go to the site of the distro and you
will be certain to find how they do
it. Or Google for the name of the
distro and the phrase “filing bugs”
and you will probably get there
right away.
Now, aside from the specific
mechanics of submitting a bug for
your distro, there are some general
things that are important to any
good bug report, and you should
learn to look for these:
Did anything just change? Did you
just add a new video card, for
instance? If you change to a
different video card, does that
affect the problem? Did you just
install new software? Did you just
update something? Can you roll
back the change and try again?
Knowing the answers to these
questions can be very important in
determining where the problem
lies.
What were you doing when the
problem occurred? Is it
reproducible, i.e. if you do the
same things again, do you get the
exact same problem? Again, a very
important piece of information for
tracking down the bug.
Do you have any log data to add
to the report? Get to know where
this data lives, and how to access
it. For instance, dmesg is a great
source of information. Just
including this file in your bug
report can be useful, but even
better is finding out how to pull
out the relevant details first.
Check to see if this bug has
already been submitted. If so, you
may be able to add on to the
report as an additional case of the
same bug. Even better, if you
learned how to get good
information, you can improve the
original bug report to the point
where the developers can actually
work on it. When you look at how
bugs are submitted, a large
number of them cannot be worked
on because there is no useful
information. Learn to make yours
useful. Also, you may discover that
the bug has already been fixed,
and all you need to do is update
your software. That is pretty good,
right?
Here is an example of one
problem I had. The software
package in question was Miro,
which downloads and plays videos
from the Web, which for me is
mostly video podcasts. And I use it
every day, so this problem
mattered to me. I had just
upgraded my distro to the newest
version, and suddenly Miro would
not play any of my videos. I
checked and I could play them in
other software, but I wanted Miro
to work for me again. I also
checked on another computer with
the same distro version, and had
the exact same problem. So I filed
a bug in two places, one with the
distro, the other with Miro itself. I
got a reply from a developer on
the Miro project within hours, and
he said that he had tried that exact
distro version and had no
problems. So there was probably
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MY OPINION
some combination of software
that I tended to use that did
something unexpected. He asked
me to grab a log file from Miro,
and send it to him. I did so, and
again he wrote back promptly
pointing out a couple of lines in
the log file, and saying that it
looked like I was missing a critical
package. I checked, and it looked
like this package was on my
system, but I removed it,
reinstalled it, and then Miro
worked properly again. I think this
counts as a very good outcome.
When you create good bug
reports, you help yourself and you
help others. And that is a big part
of what it means to have
Community-Supported Software.
Documentation
In my day job,I am a Project
Manager, and one of the things I
constantly try to get is good
documentation. I hope I have even
produced a little of it myself. But
there is no topic on which I get
more resistance than on creating
good documentation. No one ever
has time to create it, but somehow
they find the resources to pay the
price when they don’t have it. If
getting good documentation is
hard in the corporate world, how
about in the Free Software world?
It is equally difficult. I can’t tell you
how many times I have tried to
access the Help system for one of
my KDE applications only to get an
error that says there is no Help
material available. You really feel
sometimes like you are being told
“We wrote it, now you figure out
what to do with it.” And part of the
reason is that we don’t always
think about it properly (in my
opinion).
I would start by distinguishing
between two kinds of
documentation: technical, and end-
user. Technical documentation, as
the name implies, is the sort of
thing that the developers could
provide if they chose to do so. This
could get to the very deepest level
of code documentation, but even if
it lives at a somewhat higher level,
it is not end-user documentation.
And the question of whether it
even exists remains. Developers
like developing, but they generally
don’t like documenting. And in
Free Software many of these
people are volunteers.
But the topic of end-user
documentation takes us in a
different direction, and one where
people with the right skills can be
very helpful. It can also be a little
frustrating. I recall one experience
I had where I offered to help
create end-user documentation for
an application. When I asked to see
what they had, the response was
“We don’t have anything, that is
what we want you to do.” Now I
like to think I am a good writer, and
I know I have been praised at work
for the documentation I have
written, but any writer needs
something to start with. At work, I
can make the technical people sit
down with me, answer my
questions, and so on. And you
really need something like that to
do good documentation. Good
technical documentation can get
you started, but to do good end-
user documentation you will need
to have some kind of access to the
developers. And if the folks on the
project you want to help don’t
understand this, you need to
explain it to them. They may want
someone to come along and just
magically make something happen
without anyone else on the project
being involved, but that is just not
feasible. Good documentation is a
group effort, really.
In writing for the end-user, you
need to be able to think a little
differently. End-users are, by-and-
large, not technical. There can be
exceptions to this rule, but this is a
good starting place for writing the
most useful documentation. And
the best way to do this is by
thinking of “stories”. The Agile
community tends to do a good job
of this in terms of software
development, but you need to
carry this into documentation as
well. You could write a book on this
topic, and I don’t have that kind of
space here so I will be somewhat
more brief. Stories in this context
means picturing a typical user of
some kind, and imagining how they
might try to use the software. Who
is this person? Be specific give
this person a name, an age, a sex, a
background. The better you do this
the better able you will be to get
into this person’s skin and see
things the way they do. Then look
at some questions they might
have.
full circle magazine #65
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MY OPINION
And that is just a few of the
questions you might want to ask at
the beginning. By answering them,
you set a direction for what you
want to do. And if you can begin
here, and you can write out
answers that end-users can make
sense of, you can make an
invaluable contribution to Free
Software.
One last note is about
translating documentation. Free
software is international in scope,
and often the people who need it
most also need it in their own
language. If you can translate the
documentation, that is also a
much-needed contribution. Many
projects are looking for help with
this aspect of the documentation.
Just offer to help.
The M Word
And by that I mean Money.
As I mentioned previously,
when we talk about Free Software,
the emphasis ought to be on
freedom, not on price. The fact
that so much Free Software is also
free of purchase is great. It offers
people who cannot afford
expensive proprietary software a
chance to use comparable
software that can improve their
lives, their businesses, and their
societies. But, at the same time,
it does require some
money to produce the
software. While
there are cases
where the
financial
support comes
from
interested
companies
who may
assign their
staff as
developers
or provide
server space
(and
companies like
Red Hat and
IBM provide a lot
of support this
way), there are also a
lot of smaller projects
that need help. And some
activities that are important are
not supported by corporations at
all, but instead must rely on
individuals to provide this support.
I would never suggest you stop
feeding your kids to do this, but
the reality is that most users of
Free Software in the US and
Europe (for example) could easily
afford to make some contributions.
And I want to suggest some ways
you can do this.
To begin with,
most of the Free
Software
projects have a
Web page.
And if you
go to the
Web page
you will
probably
see
something
like a
PayPal
button to
make a
donation. My
rule of thumb
is that if I use
the software a lot
I ought to support it
financially. I have
always felt this way,
going back to the days of
“shareware”. Shareware used to be
“try before you buy” software
produced generally by
independent developers who let
you use the software free-of-
charge, but asked you to register
and pay for it if you liked it. While
undoubtedly some number of
people simply used the software
and ignored the obligation to pay
for it, it was clear to me (and many
others) that, if the developers
could not get paid for their
trouble, they would stop making
useful software. Now that I am
firmly in the Free Software camp, I
feel the same way: if we don’t
make sure our developers are
supported, they will go do other
things. They also need to eat, they
also have families, they need to
pay their bills.
I will give a few examples from
my own experience just to
illustrate how easy it is to do this if
you are sensitive to the issue. I
realize this may look like I am
trying to make myself look good,
but I don’t think I am any better
than anyone else, I just don’t have
anyone else’s examples handy right
now.
The first example is a project
called Miro
(http://www.getmiro.com/), which
produces software to download
videos from the Internet and play
them. I subscribe to a lot of video
podcasts, as well as a few YouTube
full circle magazine #65
39
MY OPINION
channels, and this is how I do it.
And I use this software every day,
so it is a good candidate for
support. About a year ago they
were looking to sign up people in a
fund-raising drive called Adopt a
line of code”, for which you would
pay $4 per month through PayPal.
It looked good to me, so I signed
up. After all, I get far more than $4
per month of benefit from this
software and have come to rely on
it every day.
I also am a KDE user on all of my
computers. A few months back, I
saw a post from one of the
developers, Sebastian Trueg
(http://trueg.wordpress.com/),
that he needed to raise money to
support himself so he could
continue his work on KDE. Unlike
some of the developers, he had no
corporate paycheck supporting his
KDE work. Well, I use KDE every
day, I rely on it, and I clicked the
PayPal button for a donation (My
memory is that I gave him $10, not
a huge amount, but I hope that
among all of the KDE users he
raised enough money to keep
working.)
My particular distro of choice is
Kubuntu, and, again, I use it every
day. I don’t think Canonical really
needs my donations to keep going,
but they base their work on
Debian, so when I saw a
fundraising drive to write and
publish the Debian System
Administrator’s Handbook, I
pledged a small amount (again, I
think it was $10 or so. For me, $10
is the amount I can casually donate
without worrying about paying my
own bills.)
Another form of support you
can give is by joining some of the
Non-Profit charitable organizations
that support Free Software. There
are a number of them, but I will
note a few. First is the Free
Software Foundation
(http://www.fsf.org/). This was set
up by Richard Stallman, and is the
one organization on my list that is
directly focused on defending our
software freedoms. This is the
group that promotes the GPL
license. Because my own freedom
is very important to me, I am proud
to say that I am a member. This is a
little more expensive than my
donations above, at $10 per
month, but I’m glad to do it.
Another group that you can
support through a membership is
The Linux Foundation
(http://www.linuxfoundation.org/).
This group pays the salary of Linus
Torvalds (and just announced that
they are supporting Greg Kroah-
Hartman), so if the Linux Kernel is
your thing this would be a good
thing to join. Individual
memberships are $99 per year.
Next I want to mention the Linux
Fund (http://www.linuxfund.org/).
They raise money through what
are called Affinity Cards”, i.e.
credit cards with a logo of your
favorite group. You many have
seen these before to support
sports teams or universities, but
you can support Free Software.
And despite that name “Linux
Fund” they also support BSD,
which is Free Software by any
definition. All you need to do is
sign up for a credit card through
them and a small part of your
purchases goes to support the
project you choose.
The last one I would like to
mention is the Software Freedom
Conservancy
(http://sfconservancy.org/). This is
a non-profit group headed by
Bradley Kuhn that helps a lot of
projects. Essentially, they provide
the legal structure to enable
smaller projects to raise money
while the SFC handles the
administrative overhead. Bradley
was formerly at the Free Software
Foundation, and is still the most
active person in defending the
full circle magazine #65
40
IT HAS RETURNED!
The Full Circle
Podcast Returns!
It may be a new team of
podcasters, but the format
will be the same.
We'll be talking about Full
Circle Magazine, news,
reviews and interviews.
Your new team is:
Les Pounder
Tony Hughes
Jon Chamberlain
Oliver Clark
All are members of the
Blackpool (UK) LUG
http://blackpool.lug.org.uk
Debut episode is
available from the
FCM homepage.
MY OPINION
GPL, so this is a name you may well
have heard before. But at SFC he is
directly helping all of these
projects. Current member projects
include Amarok, Git, Samba, and
Wine. I’m guessing at least a few of
those projects produce software
you use, so you can help them out
with a donation.
Getting Involved
We have explored some of the
ways everyone can support Free
Software, such as by filing bugs,
writing documentation, and by
providing financial support. I want
to wrap it up by exploring what
may be the best way of all to get
started, and this is to get involved.
Join a group. Help out.
The first place you might wish
to look at is your local Linux User
Group (LUG). This is where you can
meet people in your community
who also are interested in Free
Software. You might think that
only Linux gets discussed there,
but I’d bet you would be surprised.
I know my local LUG has speakers
covering a wide range of topics in
Free Software. Last month we
learned about Sourceforge, for
instance, which supports a bunch
of different Free Software
projects. LUGs also provide
community outreach, such as by
doing install fests and by
cooperating with local schools and
organizations. I always suggest to
people that this is the first place to
go both to get help and to get
involved.
The next place you might want
to look into is with your Linux
distro of choice. Mine is Kubuntu,
which is a variant on Ubuntu that
uses the KDE desktop. So I have
joined my Ubuntu Local
Community (i.e. LoCo), which in my
case is Michigan in the US. This
group organizes Bug Jams, where
people get together to file and
work on bugs. And they organize
release parties twice a year when
new releases come out. I know that
Fedora has what they call the
Fedora Ambassadors program, and
many other distros have
opportunities to get involved. You
have only to ask.
Finally, I am going to mention
the various Linux and Free
Software conferences. I am
involved with one called Ohio
LinuxFest, where I am the Publicity
director. I just finished writing a
page for our web site
(https://ohiolinux.org/node/187)
where I listed 8 major positions we
are trying to fill, as well as a bunch
of day-of-event positions for
volunteers. If you have never been
involved with an event like this,
you might not realize just how
much work is involved in making
the magic happen each year. But it
is hard work, and every one of
them is looking for volunteers to
help put it on. And this is
something you can do even if you
don’t feel like you can file bugs or
write documentation, or you don’t
have the money to provide
financial support. You can always
provide help at these events.
Chances are there is one not too
far from you.
What really matters, though, is
that you make a contribution of
some kind. As we said when we
started this series of posts, Free
Software means Community-
supported Software. When it stops
getting community support, it dies.
If you value Free Software, then
you have a responsibility to
support it in one way or another.
My role here is to give you ideas on
how you can do that.
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Written by Ronnie Tucker
July 2012, 480 pp.
ISBN: 978-1-59327-425-2
http://nostarch.com/ubuntumadee
asy
T
he first two chapters of
“Ubuntu Made Easy”
begin by explaining what
Linux is, how to try
Ubuntu (yes, the book comes with
a Live CD), and, if you like it, how to
install Ubuntu. There are plenty of
screenshots showing every step of
the way.
With Ubuntu installed, the book
then explains how the desktop
works. This is particularly useful
especially with
Ubuntu now using
Unity rather than the
traditional Windows
style desktop with
‘start’ button
equivalent, taskbar
and such-like. Unity is
sure to fox new
users.
Chapter five goes
into great detail
about getting
connected to the
Internet whether it
be via a modern
wireless router or
serial cable modem.
It even shows a
photo of a serial
port. How quaint! It
then explains
browsers, email
clients, microblogging and text
chatting.
From there it gets down to the
nitty-gritty of installing and
updating apps with the Ubuntu
Software Center. Keep your eye
out for Full Circle Magazine
popping up in a couple of
screenshots. Before moving on,
the book discusses the Update
Manager and adding repositories.
A nice touch was the authors
taking the time to explain the
adding of PPAs.
The next chapter is about
housekeeping with Nautilus,
burning CD/DVD discs and using
USB storage devices. Nothing too
in-depth, but still handy for getting
people to do backups.
We’re not even half way
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CONTENTS:
Chapter 1: Becoming a Penguinista - Welcome to the World of Linux
Chapter 2: Wading and Diving - Running and (If You Like) Installing Ubuntu
Chapter 3: A New Place to Call Home - Getting to Know the Desktop
Chapter 4: More than Webbed Feet - Connecting to the Internet
Chapter 5: Slipping and Sliding - Exploring the Internet, Linux Style
Chapter 6: Rounding Out the Bird - Downloading, Installing, and Updating Programs the Easy Way
Chapter 7: A Tidy Nest - File and Disk Handling in Ubuntu
Chapter 8: Simple Kitten Ways - Getting to Know the Linux Terminal and Command Line
Chapter 9: Dressing Up the Bird - Customizing the Look and Feel of Your System
Chapter 10: Gutenbird - Setting Up and Using Your Printer and Scanner
Chapter 11: Polyglot Penguins - Linux Speaks Your Language
Chapter 12: Penguins at Work - Getting Down to Business in Linux
Chapter 13: Right-Brain Penguins - Linux Does Art
Chapter 14: Tux Rocks - Music a la Linux
Chapter 15: Pluggin' in the Penguin - Ubuntu and Your iPod, iPhone, and Other Digital Media Devices
Chapter 16: Couch Penguins - Video and DVD Playback in Ubuntu
Chapter 17: Feathered Flippers - Linux Gaming
Chapter 18: Sweet Home Antarctica - Linux Around the House
Chapter 19: Penguins at the Gates - Working with Ubuntu in a Windows World
Chapter 20: Defending the Nest - Security
Chapter 21: A Colony of Penguins - The Ubuntu Community
Chapter 22: Wounded Wings - Fixing Common Problems
Appendix A: Installing Ubuntu from a USB Flash Drive
Appendix B: Ubuntu Desktop CDs for AMD64 Users
Appendix C: Manually Partitioning Your Hard Disk
Appendix D: Resources
full circle magazine #65
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REVIEW
through the book and we’re
getting terminal commands? Hang
on, installing pyWings via terminal?
But we’ve not even touched on
office/graphics/media stuff yet!
Only after doing complex terminal
stuff does it explain how to change
the desktop wallpaper which
seems a bit backwards.
After installing a printer and
changing the localization we get to
play with LibreOffice. It does a
good job of explaining the
different parts that make up the
office suite, and quickly explains
how to use each part.
At the halfway mark the book
begins explaining how to import
photos from digital cameras and
how to go about getting images
published online. Although,
Facebook for publishing photos?
Why not Flickr or something more
suited to photographs? Next, after
some GIMP talk, comes audio with
Rhythmbox and the ripping of
audio CDs. When the book
discusses the connection of
Android devices I did like how it
mentioned the current trend of
using MTP (rather than the old USB
storage option) explaining that as
of 12.04 MTP is much more
Android friendly. Several pages on
and we find that some Apple
devices fare just as badly with
HFS+ formatting which doesn’t get
along well with the Linux kernel.
After video playback we enter
into the realm of Linux games.
Several titles are mentioned from
various genres.
It’s inevitable that, at some
point, your Linux machine will
come into contact with a Windows
machine. Chapter 19 explains how
to mount Windows drives and
touches upon installing and using
Wine.
Heading into the final straight,
the book discusses the community
and how to get help. A big thanks
to No Starch Press for including
Full Circle Magazine in its list of
newsworthy sites. Definitely an
honor!
The final chapters show what to
do if your Ubuntu comes a cropper
and you need some assistance or,
worse still, safe mode.
I like the information that’s
contained in “Ubuntu Made Easy,”
but I’m not sure that it’s a good
idea to begin with trying to explain
what Linux/Ubuntu is. I think a
better starting point would have
been explaining how to try Ubuntu;
then, later on, explaining what
Linux is after the user has tried it.
The other chapters are great, but
maybe a little rearrangement
would have been in order. I’d
probably have told people how to
hook up Apple/Android devices
and use the office apps before
teaching them about installing
pyWings via the command line.
Definitely a great book for
beginners, but you’ll probably
have to explain to them not to
panic about the early mentions of
the terminal.
Many thanks to No Starch Press
for the review copy of “Ubuntu
Made Easy.” Please support No
Starch by buying their books via:
http://nostarch.com
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Written by Robin Catling
W
ith the release of
12.04, we're in a
fortunate position;
there's a growing
user base, a healthy user
community, and a lot of highly
intelligent people working on and
writing about Ubuntu. There are
even some very thick and quite
expensive printed books on the
subject. But in keeping with the
free and Open Source ethos, we
decided to take a look at some of
the free publications you can get
to help you and your Ubuntu
recruits along the way.
Muktware's Ubuntu
Manual - 12.04 LTS -
First Edition
http://www.muktware.com/articles
/3556/muktware-ubuntu-manual
This manual is intended for
users new to Ubuntu coming from
other operating systems, and also
users who are upgrading from
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. It is a manual
produced by the community for
the community. Therefore, it is
available free of charge, and is
distributed under the CC-BY-SA 3.0
license.
It covers all elements of the
Ubuntu world starting with
preparing your computer for
installation and using Ubuntu, to
advanced topics. It guides a new
user into the world of Ubuntu. An
entire chapter devoted to working
with Ubuntu effectively covers
some of the key features of
Ubuntu 12.04 like Virtual
Workspaces, Unity Desktop, Spread
View, and Switching between
applications.
From a site described as an
'Open Source Magazine', the team
at www.muktware.com have put
together an Ubuntu manual which
you can get directly from the
Ubuntu Software Centre!
Released under the Creative
Commons license, by a team for
whom English appears not to be
their first language, Muktware's
Ubuntu Manual is another attempt
to produce a manual for new users.
Like all the beginners’ manuals, it
does the right thing in principle,
opening with About Ubuntu, Why
Ubuntu, Who is behind Ubuntu,
Ubuntu Releases, Contributing to
Ubuntu.
In practice, the chances are, if
you've got it, you know a lot of
this, or you've been recommended
it and don't give a monkey’s, or you
just want to get on with it. Why can
nobody produce a fly-leaf PDF
page with a little info graphic, and
the hot links to skip to the section
you want in this case Chapter 4
on page 11, Obtaining Ubuntu
followed by Chapter 5, Installing?
Part II, Using Ubuntu, gets into
its stride, with an overview of the
Unity desktop, the Launcher, and
HUD. The manual has some slightly
strange page layouts and breaks
and eccentric captioning. It's not a
particularly great explanation of
the HUD either. The Software
Centre is much better explained,
with warnings in the appropriate
places.
Next, there's a whole section on
Terminal Basics. This is well written
and presented content, but I'm of
two minds about terminal use.
Who is the audience for this
manual? Do you stick to describing
the graphical interface after all
you can do 95% of common tasks
via Nautilus including setting
ordinary permissions. Or do you
acknowledge there are quicker
ways for the technically
competent, and live in the real
world where the Linux terminal
still exists? Taking that second
option, Terminal Basics is done
well.
The next section is about
Performing Basic Tasks, which it
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covers very, very briefly in a very
random order Micro-blogging,
playing media, the Office suite,
connecting and configuring
Internet, Printing, email, web
browsing, file sharing and games.
Advanced Topics then goes off
the rails a bit, installing alternative
desktops actually describes only
one Gnome Shell. Does anyone
run Gnome Shell on Ubuntu? Any
new users?
Working Effectively Using
Ubuntu then talks about
Workspaces. Surely this belongs in
an earlier section? Switching
between applications, perhaps?
Next comes Customising Ubuntu,
which demonstrates the scope and
ambition of this manual installing
lenses and scopes, third party
applications, and customising the
appearance. The Privacy Manager
also gets a mention. Part III,
Getting Help contains pointers to
various forums, wikis and
newletters.
As a free "manual produced by
the community for the
community," it is an excellent
effort; time and experience may
well suggest to the team some
better ways of doing things.
Ubuntu, An Absolute
Beginners Guide
by Courtney Loo, edited by Justin
Pot
http://courtneyloo.wordpress.com/
2012/01/23/ubuntu-an-absolute-
beginners-guide/
You can tell when a technology
is becoming popular when the
general tech press starts producing
material for it:
Honestly, these manuals are
starting to drive me crazy. How can
so many people get this so wrong?
Take a tip from a good marketing
department. Grab the viewer from
the get-go; show, tell, sell. Give
them pictures, colour. Give them
the gee-whizz..
They don't want a history
lesson. They don't need Sociology-
101. They need answers. What is it,
why do I need it, why is it so much
better than what I'm using now?
Courtney Loo's manual is only
32 pages long. Less than half that
is the material that should be in An
Absolute Beginners Guide.
It begins with the classic
mistake; What is it, the Ubuntu
Philosophy, How can it be free.
Jokingly referring to Linux, the
dreaded L-word, it tries to
demystify and explain Linux.
Meanwhile, I'm still waiting...
Chapter 3, Ubuntu Releases, is
an entirely unnecessary history
lesson in a horrible looking page
full of version numbers, code
names and releases. BORED! CUT!!!
Page 10: Installing. Finally!
Different ways of installing Ubuntu
is quite a useful run-down; via ISO,
USB stick, Dual-boot, co-existing
with Windows and Mac, or through
Wubi. Better!
Chapter 5 is Support and
Community. Hang on, I haven't
seen any of it yet! You haven't
shown me? Why do I care about
other free documentation and
Launchpad Answers?
Chapter 6, page 16: Getting
Started with Unity. Except it
doesn't. "Before Unity There Was
GNOME: A Little Bit Of History"
NOOO!!! I don't CARE!!! I don't give
a rat’s-tail about Gnome and its
Fisher-Price foot-print logo. This is
Chapter 6! GET ON WITH IT!!!
Page 17 finally shows me and
describes Ubuntu Unity. The next
few pages are dense (more
whitespace here, please), and
finally give me some decent
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information about Ubuntu, Unity,
the Dash, navigating and pinning.
Section 7 is entitled Ubuntu
Applications (How Do I...?); update
My Computer, Install Software and
Applications, download, surf,
manage photos, listen to music.
Now here's a thing. The first
item in Further Reading is an
article on MakeUseOf.com: Ubuntu
Restricted Extras: The First Thing
You Should Install on Ubuntu. Loo's
Listening to Music section doesn't
mention this. If you've got .MP3
music files, this is the first thing
you want to know. But it doesn't.
This is in the footnotes to a guide
which stops on page 30. I'm an
Absolute Beginner and you've
done little more than tease...
The Makeuseof guide appears
to have been written to a house
style under a restrictive brief (and
a proprietary licence!). While I like
elements of the writing style,
there is quite a number of things
wrong with this guide. RC
Ubuntu Manual Project:
Getting Started with
Ubuntu 12.04
http://ubuntu-manual.org/
Getting Started with Ubuntu
12.04 is a comprehensive
beginners guide for the Ubuntu
operating system. It is written
under an open source license, and
is free for you to download, read,
modify and share.
The manual will help you
become familiar with everyday
tasks such as surfing the web,
listening to music, and scanning
documents. With an emphasis on
easy to follow instructions, it is
suitable for all levels of
experience.
The project homepage actually
does a good job of describing and
reviewing the manual for me:
Easy to understand our manual
has step-by-step instructions and is
jargon-free (mostly)
A picture is worth a thousand
words lots of screen-shots to
show you how to do tasks (cool)
Progressive learning curve start
with the basics, and learn as you
work through each chapter
Dozens of languages translated
into more than 52 languages,
including localized screen-shots
CC-BY-SA licensing download,
modify, reproduce, and share as
much as you like
Printer friendly we have a
version optimized for printing to
save the trees
Troubleshooting section to help
you solve common Ubuntu
problems quickly
Now, the title is Getting
Started. Unfortunately, the team is
still committing the same error I
pointed out for the very first
edition. There's too much boring
stuff at the beginning.
Intellectually important stuff;
ethically important stuff. But
boring. Why does it need to be the
first section? Even if you call it
Prologue: Welcome, Ubuntu
Philosophy, A brief history of
Ubuntu, Is Ubuntu right for you
(this I like), Contact details, About
the team, Conventions used in this
book (useful).
With the section on Installation,
the quality begins to show
through. This is a proper step-by-
step guide with the right pictures.
The Desktop section has
sidebars and definitions and
illustrations, and works through
the things you need to know in the
right order; Unity, Launcher, Dash,
Managing Windows, Workspaces,
file manager, searching,
customising, accessibility.
Working with Ubuntu is a
comprehensive section almost 50
pages long, working through the
standard applications. Importantly,
it addresses the subject of codecs
for playing different media
formats.
There's a section on hardware
an area in which a lot of computer
users get stuck in “Driver Hell,”
setting up and configuring various
devices. Displays, printers,
cameras, sound, scanning are all
covered in sufficient depth to get
through common configuration.
Software Management then
goes through installing and
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REVIEW
maintaining the software stack on
your machine, the Software
Centre, and the mechanics of
package installs. It mentions the
terminal, but doesn't go into any
detail. Security is outlined
covering firewalls, permissions,
users and groups. There's a short
but sweet section on
Troubleshooting. Finding
Additional Help is a good list of
sources.
At the back, where it belongs,
the Open Source Licence is
included in full. There's also a
decent glossary.
Criticisms? I have very few as
the Ubuntu Manual is now a
mature publication. Yes, it could do
with a few more pictures, if only to
relieve some of the pages that are
quite bland and text-heavy. The
sidebar text is in far too small a
typeface so you can miss some
really useful snippets.
Simplify Your Life: the
"Unity Orientation
Guide" Revised
http://ubuntu-
za.org/sites/default/files/unity-5-
10-0-final-pdf.pdf
With the release of Ubuntu
Linux 12.04 LTS, the Ubuntu
Vancouver Local Community
(UVLC) has updated its guide to the
Unity desktop. The fully revised
"Unity Orientation Guide,"
formerly "Simplify Your Life with
Ubuntu Unity", is publicly available
and deserves to be easier to find.
To quote editor-in-chief and
Ubuntu Buzz Generator Randall
Ross:
If you're new to Ubuntu, or Unity,
or both, it's definitely worth a read.
If you've just installed Ubuntu
12.04 LTS, then this guide is for
you.
If you doubt that Unity is
powerful and useful, we think this
guide just might sway your opinion.
No matter what your familiarity
is with Ubuntu, please share this
guide with your neighbours,
friends, and family members,
especially those on the other side
of the chasm!
It's another stand-out job by the
Vancouver team to produce a
straight-forward guide on a
technical subject (I know, I've done
them, including a Unity Guide for
Full Circle Magazine). Plaudits go
to managing editor Charlene
Tessier and the team of guest
editors/proof-readers from Ubuntu
Vancouver.
On first glance, the Unity
Orientation Guide is a lighter and
much faster read than the original.
It's geared towards those learning
and experiencing the Ubuntu Unity
interface for the first time. Its
focus is getting you oriented
quickly, and thus allowing you to
get on with your day-o-day
computer tasks.
This is more tightly focused
than the other guides here, since it
assumes you already have Ubuntu
with Unity installed, and so gets on
with the job. Using very simple
page layouts with lots of white
space, the instructions are
unfailingly clear and concise.
It does what it says on the cover
for the most part, although I was
initially confused to find the
explanation of the Unity HUD
(Head Up Display) at the back,
feeling it really ought to go near
the front just after the description
of the Unity Dash. After all, the
HUD is a much trumpeted feature
of 12.04. Then the thinking became
clear the HUD is the labour-saver
when you are in applications, so
the guide talks about applications
first.
This is a well structured, well
designed team effort. I heartily
recommend it.
Conclusion
Overall I still think the
Vancouver team book, Unity
Orientation Guide strikes the best
balance of style and content, but
the Ubuntu Manual is the larger
reference work and a good one at
that.
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Every month we like to publish some of the emails we receive. If you would like to
submit a letter for publication, compliment or complaint, please email it to:
.
If Looks Could Kill
I
am a fan of MS office just
because of its looks, except I
do all my work on LibreOffice.
MS office gives me some
frustrating experience every time I
try to do something incredible
with it. Looks can be deceptive but
Looks kill. MS office is one of the
reason why most of my friends are
not switching to Ubuntu.
LibreOffice needs a grand
makeover of its UI to create a first
impression... love at first sight as
you may call it! But LibreOffice
developers do not have much
resources for such a grand
makeover in near future. As
LibreOffice is now the default
office suite for Ubuntu, I think
Canonical should foster the
LibreOffice project. LibreOffice is a
much better office suite than even
MS office. Leave alone the UI, a
few little tweaks like HUD
integration at deeper level and
cloud support with Ubuntu One
may take it way ahead of MS
office.
Uttamv
FVWM FTW!
I
read about Alan Ward's article
(Linux Lab - Making *buntu
12.04 Boot Faster) in FCM#63.
At the end of his article he
showed his desktop, which is
FVWM (F Virtual Window Manager)
in nature. Is it possible to give a
step-by-step instruction to install
FVWM from an Ubuntu 12.04
command-line-system?
JP
Alan Replied:
B
oth FVWM (the simple
version) and FVWM-
crystal (a bit more
beautiful) are in the
Ubuntu repositories, more
precisely in the universe section.
So all you need to do, at the
command line, is:
sudo bash
apt­get update
apt­get install fvwm­crystal
(or "apt-get install fvwm" if you
only want FVWM )
and you should be good to go.
Alternatively, any graphical
software installer such as Synaptic
should also find them for you.
You then log out of your
session, and should find the fvwm
entries have been created in the
display manager list of desktop
sessions. For example, in lightdm:
As for configuration, there is
not too much information to be
found on the Web. The Gentoo
guide on FVWM is about the most
comprehensive I have seen so far:
http://en.gentoo-
wiki.com/wiki/FVWM/Configuratio
n
Alan Ward
Simple Solutions
I
started using Ubuntu back in
2006 with Edgy Eft. It always
has been and always will be a
great Operating System. I
support Ubuntu and what it stands
for. It is great to see Canonical
working hard to satisfy the
demands of users who use touch-
screen devices such as tablets,
smart-phones and All-in-one PCs.
I installed Ubuntu 12.04 a few
weeks back on my 15.3” laptop,
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full circle magazine #65
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LETTERS
but I, like many other desktop
users, found Unity counter-
productive and limited in
configure-ability. I have since
installed Xubuntu due to the
classic and simple style of the user
interface that so many Linux users
are used to. I would love to still use
Ubuntu because of its good
reliability and support. I know
there is gnome-fallback, but I think
we need a better long-term
answer for the many desktop users
out there.
I want to share my own solution
to this dividing issue. My answer:
When the user installs Ubuntu for
the first time, the user is asked
what type of device they use.
Options could include: Tablet and
All-in-one PC = Unity Interface, and
Desktop = Gnome Interface. I
believe work should be done in
both interfaces to keep Ubuntu
users happy and content. Also,
once Ubuntu is installed, there
should be more options to allow
greater configure-ability, and, of
course, an option to bring back the
classic menu we have all grown
used to. It also makes me wonder
how many businesses are going to
cope, since from what I have read,
most of the computers in the
world are office PCs. Maybe I'm a
dreamer; I believe not. If Canonical
wants its desktop and power users
back, they need to have options for
all users, not just a 'one-fits-all'
approach. Simple. The next few
years are going to be very
interesting in regard to the future
development of the user interface
on computer devices.
Chris Love
No Kthanks
I
recently tried Kubuntu 12.04,
and read some reviews on it,
and found out they were right:
Kubuntu is rather bare-bones,
and takes a lot of tweaking to get
just right. After getting frustrated
with the bloated-feeling Kubuntu, I
tried PCLinuxOS KDE and found it
to run faster and smoother on the
same hardware mostly due to
how it was set up. To top it off, the
mouse wheel actually worked in
PCLinuxOS when it didn't in
Kubuntu. I am more at home with
Gnome than KDE, so anything to
make using the really nice DE easy
to get into is always a plus. Maybe
I'll try Kubuntu again once it has
some bug fixes done, but, for now,
I'll stick with Gnome on my Ubuntu
setup, and play with KDE when the
mood strikes me with PCLinuxOS.
Don
full circle magazine #65
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full circle magazine #65
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Q
Q
&
&
A
A
Compiled by Gord Campbell
If you have Ubuntu-related questions, email them to:
, and Gord will answer them in a future
issue.
Q
Is there a way to have
more choice of
wallpapers than the ones
included in Ubuntu
12.04?
A
Yes! My favorite web
sites for getting
interesting wallpaper
are National Geographic
and Flightaware.
Let's say you have downloaded
lions.jpg into your Pictures folder.
Right-click on an empty area of
your desktop, and select "Change
Desktop Background." A window
will pop up with wallpaper
thumbnails on the right side. Click
on "+" below the thumbnails. A
file-manager window will appear,
click on "Pictures" on the left side
of the window. Find "lions.jpg" in
the list, select it and click on
"Open." Close the "Appearance"
window and you are done.
Q
Ubuntu 12.04 is perfect
as long as I can access the
Synaptic Package
Manager more easily.
A
Open Synaptic, and,
after entering the
password, the icon will
appear in the launcher.
Right-click the icon and select lock
to launcher.
Q
Am having some issues
with LibreOffice Present.
Working in a corporate
environment, the users
on the LAN can open my
presentation on their Windows 7
machines running Office (I assume
2010), but can't read the slides.
The backgrounds come through
but no text. Am saving a .pptx.
A
Save as .ppt
Q
I need to figure out
where some files are.
A
See this guide:
https://help.ubuntu.com
/community/find. Here's
an example: I know I
have some files which begin with
"qa" in my Documents folder or
sub-folders. I open Terminal and
enter this command:
find Documents ­name 'qa*'
Q
New HP p7-1108p with
Windows 7 already
installed. Setting up Dual
Boot w/Ubuntu 12.04.
Initially it worked fine. After
getting most everything tweaked, I
made the mistake of using the
Computer Janitor. After reboot, I
get: error: invalid arch
independent ELF magic. grub
rescue
A
(Thanks to Oldfred in
the Ubuntu Forums) See:
https://help.ubuntu.com
/community/Boot-Repair
Q
I have installed
OpenClipArt from
Ubuntu Software Center,
but how to use it, and
where are they?
A
They are in subfolders
of
/usr/share/openclipart.
To use them, run
LibreOffice Writer and click on
Tools/Gallery. The various
contributors appear on the left,
select one to see the clipart that
person has contributed.
Q
How can I make my
laptop run cooler?
A
One approach is to
install Jupiter. See:
http://www.ubuntubuzz.
com/2012/04/fix-laptop-
overheating-problem-in.html. The
page doesn't tell you that you
should log out and back in again
after installing Jupiter. Then you
can select "power saving mode".
On my laptop, the difference is 8
full circle magazine #65
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Q & A
to 15 degrees.
However, "power saving mode"
also means "low performance
mode". When I play a 480P video
on youtube, the video is very
choppy.
Q
I have Dell E220WF and
Acer AL2216W monitors
connected to the on-
board Radeon HD 6550D
video adapter on my computer.
The Acer is connected by a VGA
cable, the Dell by a DVI to VGA
connector. Nothing appears on the
Acer.
A
Replace the DVI to VGA
with a regular DVI cable.
Q
I don't use DHCP on my
LAN, everything is set to
work with static IP. Can I
set an HP K8600dn
wireless printer to work with static
IP on Ubuntu?
A
The printer has a built-in
web server for
configuration. Allow
DHCP, then find what
address the printer has: open your
file manager, and click on "browse
network." The result should be a
list of the names of all the devices
on your network. To translate the
name into an IP address, use this
command:
nmblookup [name of device]
Enter the IP address into your
browser's address bar. One of the
printer's configuration options is
to set a static IP address. Then you
can disable DHCP again.
Q
Can I run the Windows
picture-viewer, Irfanview,
in Ubuntu?
A
You will need to install
and configure Wine first.
After you download
Irfanview, the easiest
way to install it is through the
command line:
cd Downloads
wine iview433_setup.exe
This assumes that the file is in
your Downloads folder, and that
you downloaded version 4.33.
If you select "put shortcut on
desktop" during installation, you
will get a useful shortcut. You will
probably want to install plugins,
such as exif from Tucows. (With the
exif plugin, you can go from an
image with GPS data, to the
location in Google Maps, with a
couple of clicks via "GeoHack
Wiki".)
Q
I use “Photo Sharing” in
MSN Messenger. Is there
any way to do this in
Ubuntu?
A
Not really. There are
several Linux programs
which support MSN
chatting, but the only
way to get Photo Sharing would be
to install Windows in a virtual
machine such as VirtualBox, then
use MSN Messenger from there.
Q
My entire system
suddenly went read-only
on me, and then it
refused to boot up. I used
a live CD to mount my partitions
and backup some files and got
multiple cases of:
File shrank by xxxxxxx bytes;
padding with zeros
and
Cannot stat: Input/output
error
I have a full backup on an
external drive.
A
Sorry, it's time to buy a
new hard drive. You
should be proud of
yourself for having a
full circle magazine #65
53
After a long career in the computer
industry, including a stint as editor of
Computing Canada and Computer
Dealer News, Gord is now more-or-
less retired.
Q & A
backup, all too often we see: "but
how can I get back all my family
pictures from the last decade."
Q
I just upgraded from
10.04 to 12.04.1 using
the online upgrade
method. An icon for
Firefox appears twice on the icon
list on the left side, but neither
one will actually start Firefox.
A
(Thanks to Roy in the
Yahoo Ubuntu Linux
Group.) Rename
Firefox's settings folder.
Run the Nautilus file manager, and
press Ctrl-H to show hidden files.
Find .mozilla and (right-click)
rename it to mozilla.old. Firefox
should run, and it will rebuild the
folder. You should be able to
import your bookmarks from
mozilla.old.
Two Tips and
Techniques
QQ?
O
h, darn. My Chinese
wife requires a terrible
program called QQ,
which runs only under
Windows. "Terrible," because it
completely takes over the
computer, a maximum resource
hog. "Requires," because all her
friends -- and her grandson -- use it.
Why? Because its
videoconferencing is superb, truly
state-of-the-art. We have a 12-hour
time difference to China, so every
morning, she gets up early to
video-chat with her friends in
China, and with her grandson.
Now comes Ubuntu 12.10,
Quantal Quetzal, sometimes
known as "QQ" in the Ubuntu
Forums. I see a post labelled, "QQ
problem [solved]" and I think,
"finally, I can eliminate Windows."
Nope. Just wishful thinking on my
part.
Bug Reporting
T
his should be simple: I
wanted to report a bug in
the Evolution email client.
First, I went to the Evolution
web site, which is part of
projects.gnome.org. Right there, it
said, "Help us improve Evolution by
reporting bugs to Bugzilla, our bug
tracking system."
As it turns out, I had previously
signed up with Bugzilla. However,
when I tried to login with that
email address and password, it said
it had never heard of me. I assume
it removes users who are inactive
for some period of time.
I signed up again, and that
worked perfectly. I could login to
Bugzilla. Well, no, I couldn't. I
entered my email address and
password, and up popped a
windows labelled "Mozzilla
Persona". When I entered the email
address I had previously
registered, it said, "choose a new
password". Then it objected
because my password was too
short. When I entered a longer
password, it appeared to sign me
in, but took me to a web page
which offered no useful options.
I tried again. The result this
time? "We are very sorry. There has
been an error!"
At this point, I am ready to give
up on Evolution. Thunderbird, here
we come! Users shouldn't have to
put up with this kind of crap.
full circle magazine #65
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Written by Oscar Rivera
H
umble Indie Bundle V,
which was released on
Friday June 1, 2012,
may be the best Bundle
for Linux users to date. The new
Bundle brought with it many
welcome changes that were long
overdue. These changes are not
too “humble” by any means. For
beginners, the download process is
not only fast, but also extremely
easy. The quality of the games is
second to none when compared to
other Humble Bundle releases. The
gameplay for all releases is limited
only by your hardware and not by
the software. Last but not least,
the buying process hasn’t changed
a bit, it is as simple as simple can
be, and you can still name your
own price.
Purchase, Download
and Installation
You can no longer purchase
Humble Bundle V, but, for the first
time ever, if you are using Ubuntu,
downloading the Humble Bundle
was as easy as 1-2-3. After making
the purchase at whatever price you
decided, you received an email
with a link that took you to the
download page. At the download
page you chose how to download
your Humble Bundle. For the first
time ever, thanks to Canonical, if
you are using Ubuntu you could
click a button that said “Download
for Ubuntu”. By clicking the
Ubuntu button, you were basically
allowing the games to be
downloaded through the Ubuntu
Software Center. At the time of
this writing (June 2012), all of the
games were available to be
downloaded through the Software
Center, except for Psychonauts,
which was available to download
only through the Humble Bundle
download page. With the
exception of Psychonauts, I had all
of the games installed in my
system in less than 30 minutes! It
doesn’t get any faster than that.
Amnesia: The Dark
Descent
As far as the games themselves,
the selection this time around was
as good as it gets. My personal
favorite is Amnesia: The Dark
Descent which has been
favorably received ever since its
original release for the PC as
evidenced by its rating of 9.25 (out
of 10) in Game Informer magazine.
The graphics are among the best
I’ve seen in recent years. However,
what makes this game a must-have
for any true Linux gamer lies in the
way it scares you like no other
game can. The first time you play
the game, when you are going
through the setup process, the
game recommends a couple of
things for better enjoyment. First,
it is recommended that you play in
a dark room, with the lights off and
the graphics set as dark as you can
have them while still maintaining
visibility. Second, it is
recommended that you play with
headphones turned up loud. Last,
but definitely not least, it is
recommended that you play to
have fun rather than to beat the
game, in other words you are
encouraged to explore as much as
you can. The last recommendation,
I must admit, is the hardest to
follow due in great part to the fear
you acquire very early in the game,
that prevents you from opening a
door or turning down a dark
corner. The last thing you want to
do is explore because the game
sucks you in so much that all you
really want is to get a little bit of
your long lost sanity back. Unlike
other horror games, you have zero
weapons at your disposal; instead,
you are constantly either running
H
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full circle magazine #65
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UBUNTU GAMES
away or looking for good places to
hide, while at the same time
staying away from the light
because the light brings about
insanity. No other game I have ever
played has stirred emotions in the
way that Amnesia has, and, after
playing this game, all other so-
called Horror games seem like a
family trip to Disneyland. The
game is rated M for Mature.
Bastion
If you happened to pay more
than the average amount for the
Humble Indie Bundle, you also
received Bastion, the 2011 game
developed by Supergiant Games.
Much like Amnesia, Bastion also
fared well among game critics and
fans alike. Like Amnesia, the
protagonist wakes up to get re-
acquainted with a mysterious yet
familiar world. However, the
similarities end there. Bastion is a
very colorful and fun game to play,
in which you don’t mind exploring
at all. It received an ESRB rating of
E10+, but it is definitely not for
kids only, but rather a game that
can literally be enjoyed by anyone,
no matter how old or young at
heart. Bastion is an action RPG in
which you play The Kid who must
explore a floating island and battle
all sorts of creatures in order to
restore peace to the land.
Throughout the game there are
many weapons and skills to
acquire; however, The Kid can carry
only two weapons and one special
skill at a time, which are
interchangeable and upgradable.
One aspect that is unique to
Bastion is the way the game is
narrated by one of the game’s non-
playable characters. The narration
is actually pretty fun to listen to,
and often funny. Not only do the
upcoming challenges affect the
narration, but so do your choices as
well as your playing style.
Originally the game was released
for Xbox Live Arcade, but we in the
Linux world are now fortunate to
be able to play this game in our
system and enjoy the fantasy-like
colorful graphics, superb
soundtrack, instinct driven
controls, and fascinating storyline
that Bastion has to offer.
Limbo
Much like Bastion, Limbo was
originally exclusively released for
the Xbox Live Arcade in 2010 but,
as of May 2012, the game has been
made available for the Linux
platform, just in time to be
released with the Humble Indie
Bundle V. Limbo is the first game
ever developed by Playdead. Limbo
is a 2D side-scrolling puzzle-
platformer that is entirely in black
and white from beginning to end.
Very much like Amnesia and
Bastion, in Limbo you wake up in a
rather foreign and definitely
violent world. Also, much the same
as Amnesia, in Limbo the main
character has no weapon at all.
Instead, you must solve many
puzzles to survive, sometimes
relying on your surroundings to
defeat your enemies. When you
fail to solve the puzzles, the boy
often suffers a very graphically
violent death. Although black and
white, the artwork is one of the
defining aspects of Limbo. Playing
it feels almost as if you were
watching an old, silent, black and
white movie in a rundown theater
with a projector that might need
replacement soon. The puzzles
range from easy to extremely hard
full circle magazine #65
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UBUNTU GAMES
to solve. However, the game is
highly addictive and can be solved
in under 15 hours. Once you start,
it’s pretty hard to put it down. The
controls are pretty standard and
straightforward. The boy in the
game can move only from left to
right, jump, and grab things
whether it’s a rope, a box, or a
canoe. The game uses a very
minimalistic approach in all
aspects, from sound and graphics
to controls and storyline. From the
beginning of the game until the
very end, the only thing you know
is that the boy is on a quest to find
his sister. Due to the often
gruesome death sequences, you
can’t help to wonder why the game
received an ESRB rating of T
instead of M. Perhaps if the game
were in color and you could see the
red blood, the game might have
gotten the Mature ESRB rating.
Other games and
Conclusion
At the time of this writing there
were eight games available that
were all part of the Humble Indie
Bundle V. Originally, the games
included with the Bundle were
Amnesia, Limbo, Superbrothers:
Sword and Sorcery, Psychonauts,
and Bastion if you paid above the
average amount of money paid at
the time of purchase. Then, on
June 7th, three other games were
added to those people who had
paid more than the average. These
games are Braid, Super Meat Boy,
and Lone Survivor. Perhaps the
other games will be reviewed in an
upcoming FCM issue.
Overall, the release of the
Humble Indie Bundle V has been a
great success. In its first 15 hours
after being released, the Bundle
had already sold more copies than
the previous best selling Bundle
which was Humble Indie Bundle IV.
At the time of this writing, the
Humble Indie Bundle V had sold
522,042 copies and counting. Ever
since the Humble Indie Bundle 1,
Linux buyers have paid, on average,
more than Windows and Mac
buyers. It could be this factor that
has led to such great and
significant progress to Linux
gaming as a whole. It is
undoubtedly hard to deny that the
Linux community is willing to
spend money to play video games,
and lots of video game companies
have taken notice of this fact. Not
only have independent companies
profited from Humble Indie Bundle
sales, but also there have been
talks lately of establishing a Linux
port for Steam, thus making
available a whole new world of
video games for those of us who
love Linux gaming.
For the most recent bundle see:
www.humblebundle.com
full circle magazine #65
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M
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Here is my desktop with a dynamic
screen generated from a shell script
with conky. I have an ASUS F50Q with
4 GB of memory, a Dual Core Intel
Pentium T3400 at 1.6 GHz, a hard
disk of 320 GB, and Ubuntu 12.04
Precise Pangolin.
I use the theme Radiance and Faenza
for icons. I use the dock cairo-dock
(without opengl).
Mamadou Sow
Your chance to show the world your desktop or PC. Email your screenshots and
photos to: and include a brief paragraph about your
desktop, your PC's specs and any other interesting tidbits about your setup.
This is my desktop - Ubuntu 32-bit with Lucid. PC Lenovo H310
- Intel Dual Core 3.0 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM and 500 GB Hard
Drive.
The screen of the Screen Widget Less, New Wave theme of
Gnome 2.
The other OS is 32-bit Linux Mint Maya with Cinnamon - which
is the primary operating system of the machine.
Trong Dũng Võ
full circle magazine #65
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MY DESKTOP
I started using Ubuntu 4 months
ago, and I think I am addicted to it
now. I love Ubuntu because it is
mine, I can change everything here
or even remake it for myself; I use
conky, Gimp, stellarium, chromium,
pidgin, and ... many other software
that are available for Ubuntu.
My system:
CPU: Intel core i5
RAM: 4 GB
Graphics: nvidia 630M (2 GB)
OS: Ubuntu (12.04)
SaMaN
I started using Ubuntu since
April 2012 as the Precise version
released. Below are the
specifications of my Laptop PC.
Model: Sony Vaio VGN-FW248J
OS: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Processor: Intel Core2Duo CPU
P8400 @ 2.26 GHz
HDD: 250 GB
RAM: 4 GB
I love Freedom, Free Software,
and, last but not least,
GNU/Linux distributions.
Navid Emami
full circle magazine #65
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PUZZLE SOLUTIONS
CODE WORD
Codeword and 16x16 Suduko puzzles are
copyright, and kindly provided by, The Puzzle
Club - www.thepuzzleclub.com
SUDOKU
full circle magazine #65
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- Ronnie Tucker
ronnie@fullcirclemagazine.org
- Rob Kerfia
admin@fullcirclemagazine.org
- Les Pounder & Co.
podcast@fullcirclemagazine.org
Mike Kennedy, Lucas Westermann,
Gord Campbell, Robert Orsino,
Josh Hertel, Bert Jerred
Our thanks go to Canonical, the many
translation teams around the world
and Thorsten Wilms for the FCM logo.
FULL CIRCLE NEEDS YOU!
A magazine isn't a magazine without articles and Full Circle is no
exception. We need your opinions, desktops, stories, how-to's,
reviews, and anything else you want to tell your fellow *buntu users.
Send your articles to: articles@fullcirclemagazine.org
We are always looking for new articles to include in Full Circle. For help and advice
please see the Official Full Circle Style Guide: http://url.fullcirclemagazine.org/75d471
Send your or Linux experiences to: letters@fullcirclemagazine.org
Hardware/software should be sent to: reviews@fullcirclemagazine.org
for Q&A should go to: questions@fullcirclemagazine.org
screens should be emailed to: misc@fullcirclemagazine.org
... or you can visit our via: fullcirclemagazine.org
FCM#66
Deadline:
Sunday 07th Oct. 2012.
Release:
Friday 26th Oct. 2012.
EPUB Format - Recent editions of Full Circle have a link to the epub file on the downloads page. If you have any problems with
the epub file, you can drop an email to: mobile@fullcirclemagazine.org
Google Currents - Install the Google Currents app on your Android/Apple devices, search for 'full circle' (within the app) and
you'll be able to add issues 55+. Or, you can click the links on the FCM download pages.
Ubuntu Software Centre - You can get FCM via the Ubuntu Software Centre: https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/. Search for 'full
circle', choose an issue, and click the download button.
Issuu - You can read Full Circle online via Issuu: http://issuu.com/fullcirclemagazine. Please share and rate FCM as it helps to
spread the word about FCM and Ubuntu Linux.
Ubuntu One - You can now have an issue delivered to your free Ubuntu One space by clicking the 'Send to Ubuntu One' button
which is available on issues 51+.
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